Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

Chief Enahoro

Mr. D. Smith: I beg to present a Petition to this honourable House on behalf of Noel David Sleigh, esquire, a partner in the firm of Hatchett Jones and Company, solicitors for Chief Anthony Enahoro of Nigeria.
The Petition seeks the leave of the House to quote from certain volumes of HANSARD for the purposes of a Petition by Chief Enahoro for leave to appeal to the Appeals Committee of another place, and for any subsequent court proceedings concerned with Chief Enahoro's case. It asks for the necessary proof to be given by Officers of this House, and the Petition concludes with the following Prayer:
Wherefore your Petitioner prays that your Honourable House will be graciously pleased to give leave to your Petitioner to produce, upon the hearing of his said Petition by the Appeals Committee of the House of Lards, and upon the hearing of his appeal by the House of Lords if leave to appeal be granted, all numbers in the volumes of the said OFFICIAL REPORT appertaining to statements concerning the said decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and to give leave to the proper Officers of your Honourable House to give evidence on affidavit, to produce and prove all the same according to their competence.
And Your Petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member wish to move that leave be given in the ordinary way?

Mr. D. Smith: Yes, Sir. I beg to move,
That leave be given to the proper Officers to produce documents and give evidence accordingly.

Question put, and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Fish Market Wharves, Aberdeen

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the need for reconstructing and extending the fish market wharves in Aberdeen concerning which he has been in consultation with Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeen Harbour Board; if he will now make a statement on the result of those consultations; and when the work of reconstruction and extension will commence.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): My officials have recently discussed with representatives of the Harbour Board and the Town Council the need for repair of certain sections of the fish market wharves and I understand that the Board and Council will now consider the position in the light of the discussion. Further developments will depend on the outcome.

Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is a very important matter for the development of the export trade of Aberdeen? Does he further agree that the consultations may involve the possibility of the fish market operations being confined to a smaller area and modernised so that berthage can be released for fishing vessels and other traffic to meet the growing export and other trade demands of Aberdeen Harbour? If so, will he expedite these improvements in the interests of the trade industry, commerce and employment of north-east Scotland?

Mr. Noble: Yes, Sir, as soon as the results of the necessary consultations have come to me for consideration.

Probation Service

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the disparities between the salaries and conditions of service of probation officers in different parts of Great Britain, and that their removal was recommended by the Morison Report on the Probation Services; and what steps he intends to take to have them removed.

Mr. Noble: I am aware of the Morison Committee's recommendations on this subject. I cannot yet add to the reply that I gave the hon. and learned Member on 10th April, but the decision of the industrial Court is expected shortly.

Mr. Hughes: Is not the right hon. Gentleman ashamed to continue to inflict these wrongs upon these probation officers—officers who are doing just as good work as, if not better work than, probation officers elsewhere and who deserve just as high remuneration? Will he look into this matter with a view to seeing that justice is done to these Scottish probation officers?

Mr. Noble: I welcomed the finding of the Morison Committee that the work of the probation officer is essentially the same throughout Great Britain, but I cannot anticipate the decision of the Industrial Court.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he proposes to introduce legislation to implement recommendations of the Morison Committee proposing changes in the present administration of the probation service in Scotland.

Mr. Noble: Following consultation with the interested bodies, I have decided, after very careful consideration, that I should not take a final decision on the future administration of the Scottish probation service until I can also consider the effect of other developments in the field of social work in the prevention of crime and the treatment of offenders.
Meanwhile I am considering what steps can be taken to improve the service without legislation.

Mr. Hutchison: Could my right hon. Friend say what kind of steps they are? Do they involve salary alteration or alterations of conditions of service, or what?

Mr. Noble: The salary alterations will have to wait till the Industrial Court has given its decision, but things like provision of premises for the probation service can be done without legislation.

Railway Closure Proposals (Roads)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give an estimate of the cost of providing the

roads which will be necessary to provide alternative transport to meet the implementation of the recommendations of the British Railways Board on the reshaping of British Railways.

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to what extent he proposes to expand the road programme in Scotland in order to meet the demand for additional road services which will be created by the proposed rail closures.

Mr. Noble: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has explained the statutory procedure which applies to proposed passenger closures. Until this procedure has been followed out in individual cases, it is impossible to anticipate what additional highway expenditure may be necessary. Meanwhile, I am making a preliminary examination of the possible effect of individual closure proposals.

Mr. Hamilton: How can the Government assess whether or not closures will be economic if they do not have, and are not seeking, the information that is asked for in this Question? Does not the Secretary of State realise that literally hundreds of millions of £s would be needed to produce the roads that would be required if the Beeching proposals were implemented? Does he not also recognise that this is a foolish way, and a very narrow way, of looking at the transport problems of Scotland as a whole?

Mr. Noble: I appreciate, of course, that the two things are connected, but I listened to most of the debate yesterday and the day before, and I have the feeling that even if I had been able to provide all the information for which the hon. Gentleman asks, he would only have turned round and said that it meant that I intended closing every line.

Mr. Willis: But is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport told us nothing—that it was a political speech? Is he not also aware that his right hon. Friend also indicated last night that the Beeching proposals will commence coming into operation at once? In view of that, is it not time that the Secretary of State had some information about what the alternatives will be?

Mr. Noble: In winding up the debate on Monday night, I said that we had given priority to examining the problems


in the central industrial belt. This is so. We shall continue looking at the other ones as quickly as we can.

Mr. Ross: Surely, the Minister of Transport and the right hon. Gentleman accepted, generally, the Beeching Report. Did they accept that Report without making any estimate at all, generally, of what it would cost to provide the alternative services and roads?

Mr. Noble: The general broad picture has, I think, been accepted because, in general, if the proposals are phased in the right way it will be possible for many of them to fit in with the road programme already in existence.

Mr. Ross: What is the cost of that acceptance? Was it a blind acceptance, or was the social cost also estimated?

Mr. Noble: It was certainly not a detailed study of all the possible effects, because that could not be done until Dr. Beeching's proposals were put forward. I do not think anybody in this country could work out the full details of all the possible consequential costs.

New Industries, Cumbernauld

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what new industries were established in the new town of Cumbernauld from 1st April, 1962, to 1st April, 1963; and what was the number of new jobs provided.

Mr. Noble: Three new firms were established in the new town of Cumbernauld between 1st April, 1962, and 1st April, 1963. The number of new jobs provided in the same period was 167.

Mr. Bence: I thank the Secretary of State for that Answer. This is a modest achievement, but it is some achievement. Nevertheless, 460 people travel from Cumbernauld Station to Buchanan Street because there are no jobs for them in Cumbernauld and they have to keep their jobs in Glasgow. The position will get worse with the increasing number of families coming to Cumbernauld. Will the right hon. Gentleman really make efforts to increase the number of jobs being created in the new town by bringing more industry there? Otherwise, the position will really be frightening when the station is closed.

Mr. Noble: I appreciate the hon. Member's point, but the development

corporation has three new factories nearing completion which will provide work for 450 workers. In addition, there is an extension of an existing factory, which is expected to yield 200 jobs. In addition, four standard advance factories, capable of employing up to 500 people, are under construction. I think that the development corporation is doing its best to meet what the hon. Gentleman and I want.

Nurses, Glasgow

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what response has been made to the appeals for married and other nurses to return to the profession in the hospitals and infirmaries of Glasgow; how many applicants have been found suitable for refresher courses; how many have been offered appointments in the past three months; and if he is satisfied that there are adequate facilities for refresher courses.

Mr. Noble: Two Glasgow hospitals have each offered two courses for nurses returning to hospital work; 73 nurses have attended. At one hospital, the nurses attending undertook to accept employment in that hospital and all have done so. At the other hospital, there was no obligation to take employment in the same hospital but a few of the nurses did. I do not think that special facilities are required for such courses.

Mr. Carmichael: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, but can he assure us that there is no truth in the widespread belief that in the last three months of the financial year the hospitals are unable, because of their budgets being expended, to take on nurses; and that as long as there are facilities for retraining, the money will be available for this very necessary re-entry of ex-nurses, even at the end of the financial year?

Mr. Noble: This, of course, is a matter for the hospital boards. I have no information that they are in difficulty in this particular respect at the moment.

Police Files and Records (Access)

Mr. Carmichael: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what access to police files and records is given to ex-policemen subsequently employed as security staff with other organisations.

Mr. Noble: I understand that ex-police officers employed as security staff by commercial and other similar organisations do not have access to police records.

Mr. Carmichael: Is the Secretary of State aware that there is a widespread belief among the public, with some evidence, admittedly very difficult to substantiate, that these officers are employed precisely because of their close association with the police force, their knowledge of police methods and their informal association with policemen? Will he take steps to ensure that there is absolutely no access, either official or unofficial, to police records by ex-policemen employed in these jobs?

Mr. Noble: As far as I am aware, there is no such connection, and it is difficult for me to deal with rumours that may be current. If the hon. Gentleman knows, or hears, of a particular case, I hope that he will bring it to my notice, because I agree with him on the principle.

Derelict Sites (Clearance)

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Secretary of State far Scotland how many individual applications have been made to him to date by local authorities in Scotland under Section 5 of the Local Employment Act; and how many derelict sites have been cleared as a consequence of these applications to date.

Mr. Noble: Of the 35 applications submitted, 18 have been approved for work worth an estimated total of £270,000, and 13 are under consideration. Four schemes have been completed, and work is in progress on six.

Dr. Mabon: In view of that very slow rate of approval and clearance, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether it is a case of an excess of red tape, as many local authorities agree, or of Ministerial lethargy in the matter? Would he be willing to look again at the memorandum he sent to local authorities, and ask himself whether he really believes that the application form is easy to complete, and that his Department is doing everything possible to encourage local authorities to proceed with this vital work?

Mr. Noble: My Department is as keen as I am that this work should

proceed as quickly as possible. I do not believe that there has been delay in my Department in considering proposals when they come forward. If local authorities find it difficult to fill up the form, I hope that they will bring the matter to the attention of the Department, and we will see whether we can help them in any way.

Mr. Millan: Does not this represent terrible progress, since there are no fewer than 15,000 derelict sites in central Scotland? Apart from other matters, will the Secretary of State look at the legal position, because many local authorities, in clearing derelict sites, face legal difficulties that do not affect England and Wales? Will he look into that aspect?

Mr. Noble: I will certainly look into that aspect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, progress must, to a considerable extent, depend on the speed with which local authorities bring forward schemes.

Mr. John MacLeod: Is my right hon. Friend aware that for tourist purposes sites should be cleared in places like Cromarty? Could those be recognised as eligible under the Act?

Mr. Noble: I will look into that point. I am not certain of the exact position.

Mr. Ross: When looking into that point, will the right hon. Gentleman look at whether or not applications are frustrated by the terms of the Act, which very directly relate the clearance of a site to the provision, or possible provision, of employment?

Mr. Noble: Yes, Sir. I will certainly look into that matter, too.

Forth Road Bridge

Mr. Gourlay: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the progress of the Forth Road Bridge; and on what date he expects the work to be completed.

Mr. Noble: The exceptionally bad weather of the last eighteen months has set the programme of work back considerably, and it now looks as if work may not be completed until about mid-1964. Technical discussions are taking place regularly to see what can be done to recover lost time, and the contractor


still hopes that, given reasonable weather, traffic may be able to use the bridge by April next year.

Mr. Gourlay: Is the Secretary of State aware that there are now many hours of daylight during which, apparently, no work is being undertaken on the road bridge? In view of the dreadful unemployment position in Fife, will he give an assurance that the earliest possible steps will be taken by the contractors to utilise every hour of daylight to try to speed up completion of the project? Further, will not he give some encouragement in the district by announcing that he does not propose to charge toils to the users of the bridge?

Mr. Noble: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the bridge is being built by the Forth Road Joint Board. I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman has said will come to the notice of the Joint Board, and that it will consider the point with the contractors. With regard to tolls, the Government were under considerable attack the whole of yesterday and the day before for failing the railways by trying to help road transport. In this matter, at least, I seem to be somewhat changing the pattern.

Mr. Woodburn: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the approach roads will be finished in time? In the meantime, could the right hon. Gentleman arrange for these approach roads to be linked more easily with the Bo'ness road so that people using the Kincardine bridge may have the benefit of a new road as soon as possible?

Mr. Noble: I am not able to give the exact position with regard to the approach roads, but if this can be done it certainly will be done.

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what evidence he has received from the Scottish Council concerning the effects on the future industrial development of Fife as a result of the imposition of tolls on the Forth Road Bridge; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Noble: The hon. Member will recall what was said by the Council's representative at my meeting with the local authorities concerned, at which he was present. The Council has, however, not addressed any formal representations to me.

Mr. Hamilton: Since the right hon. Gentleman studiously ignored the evidence of the Scottish Council when it presented firm evidence that industrialists had refused to consider coming to Fife because of the likely imposition of tolls, may I ask whether he will now give a considered answer to that evidence? Has the right hon. Gentleman not considered the desirability of getting a panel of economists to examine the social implications of the imposition of tolls on this bridge? Does be not recognise that Fife is almost wholly a development district and that the imposition of tolls on this bridge will do nothing to help the county out of that difficulty?

Mr. Noble: As the hon. Member knows, the problem as presented to me by the Scottish Council is that one or two firms said that they disliked tolls and one or two said that they would not come if tolls were imposed. On the other hand, six or seven firms have decided to come to the county regardless of tolls. There have been others since that meeting.

Road Accidents

Mr. Stodart: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland to what extent road accidents involving motor vehicles are classified and recorded by his Department.

Mr. Noble: Particulars of all road accidents involving personal injury are reported by the police, and various statistics based on these reports are published either monthly or annually. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the most recent report.

Mr. Stodart: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that it is of great importance to keep records determining the cause of accidents to try to eliminate those accidents? Is he further aware that when I asked his hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State whether or not he could give particulars of accidents caused by vehicles parked on the roads he told me that he was unable to do so? Will my right hon. Friend see that records of this kind are kept, with a view to reducing the number of road casualties?

Mr. Noble: As I think my hon. Friend appreciates, it is difficult to know in what form to keep records and yet keep them within some sort of bounds. Last year


parked cars were directly responsible for four out of 617 fatal accidents. It is very likely that parked cars might have been minor but contributory factors in others. If we tried to keep statistics covering all possible points we should probably get bogged down.

Mr. Steele: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the form sent to his office contains about eighty different replies to various questions? Is he also aware that there are no full-time officials in his office to handle this matter, and until it is properly handled no work will be done on getting results from the local authorities or any useful information out of these statistics?

Mr. Noble: As far as I am aware, the police and the Road Research Laboratory try to tabulate all information collected about accidents.

Education (Three-Year Secondary Course)

Mr. Small: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what proportion of pupils left school in 1962 before completing the three-year secondary course; and how this compares with 1961 and 1960, respectively.

Mr. Noble: In the year ended 7th June, 1962, the percentage for public and grant-aided schools was 45·6. This compares with 45·4 per cent. and 44·4 per cent. in 1961 and 1960 respectively.

Mr. Small: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a very high proportion and that it shows no improvement on the previous year? Has the right hon. Gentleman no advice to give to the local authorities to assist these pupils, of whom half the number fail to complete the course?

Mr. Noble: I agree that we should like to improve on these figures, but the proportion staying on has risen from 40 per cent. in the early 1950s to about 55 per cent. in 1960, and it has remained at that level for two years.

Sixth Year Classes

Mr. McInnes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the number of sixth form classes now functioning in the Scottish public schools under his jurisdiction, and what number of pupils those classes enrol.

Mr. Noble: In January, 1962, the latest date for which figures are available centrally, 209 public and grant-aided schools had sixth year classes with a total of 6,224 pupils.

Mr. McInnes: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that there is no information in the Departmental Annual Report on this aspect of sixth form classes? Will he say whether the figures he has given reveal an increase over the previous year? If they do, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the rate of increase?

Mr. Noble: I have not the figures to make a comparison with last year, but there has been an increase of 82 per cent. since 1954. This is substantial.

School Building Programme

Mr. Lawson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the extent of the reductions in the school building programmes submitted to him by the Scottish education authorities that he has decided to impose; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Ross: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the cuts he has made in the programmes of educational building proposed by Scottish education authorities.

Mr. Noble: I would refer the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) to the figures given in my reply to the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) on 24th April.
The educational building which authorities have in recent years proved capable of starting has fallen so far short of their initial proposals that authorised starts to a much smaller value have enabled all essential projects to proceed that were in fact ready. My initial authorisations in the current financial year should suffice to maintain, if not increase, the present level of educational building, which is higher than ever before: and I shall seek to approve further projects in the year as circumstances may require.

Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures which he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) reveal a cut of more than 60 per cent. in the proposals as distinct from the


approvals? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of my hon. Friends, and certainly many people in Scotland, believe that he has made these severe cuts on this occasion because he suspects that the education authorities can carry out this building very substantially and he is finding a new justification for preventing the work being carried out?

Mr. Noble: This is most certainly not so. The authorities' proposals this year may be at least as optimistic as in previous years. Only at the end of the year is it possible to say whether projects have been held back as a result of restriction on capital investment. In the past no projects have been held up for this reason.

Mr. Ross: Local authority proposals reflect the needs of the areas. Is it not a condemnation of the Secretary of State and of his predecessors that they have not been able so to organise building labour in Scotland that the need for Scottish schools can be met? Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether what he has decided to authorise is an increase or a decrease on what was actually started last year?

Mr. Noble: The position is simply that it is not a question of available building labour. In the past not one project has been held up through lack of authority for starting it. This is the position. It is not a savage cut in any sense. The local authorities have done this year what they have done every year, which is to produce a list of schools. In agreement with them we have arranged what they should start, and these are initial starts and not total programmes.

Mr. Clark Hutchison: Is it not a fact that if we look at the programmes as a whole, including the building of technical colleges and teacher training colleges, the building programme is a record?

Mr. Noble: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The building being undertaken this year is around £50 million worth, which is a record for Scotland, and this includes expansion both in the teacher training college programme and in the further education section.

Mr. Ross: With all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask whether he is aware that he is misleading the

House? Is he aware that the number of places provided in all categories of schools last year was less than it has been since 1955? The right hon. Gentleman will find that in the table in his own Report. It is no good talking about the amount of money spent when that, because of inflation, disguises a decrease in the number of places provided. To return to the original Question, do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that these cuts were made in agreement with the local authorities?

Mr. Noble: Having agreed the amount that was reasonable, the schools which should proceed have been broadly agreed with the local authorities. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not true."] If it is not true, I hope that hon. Gentlemen will bring forward any particular cases, because my Department has had discussions with, not every local authority, but many local authorities which have approached the Department and have agreed the priorities which they wanted within that framework, which is exactly what I said in reply to the hon. Gentleman.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I think that we should pass on to the next Question.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what consultations he had with Glasgow City Corporation before deciding to reduce its proposed educational expenditure; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Bence: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what consultations he had with Dunbarton County Council prior to a considerable reduction in its school building programme; and if the decision was agreed.

Mr. Noble: The regulation of educational building is a continuing process in which consultation is not confined to any particular stage. Each January, authorities submit programmes for the three following financial years with the approximate dates at which they hope to start each project. The authorisations then given list, with regard to the authorities' own order of priority, the projects which may proceed in the coming financial year as soon as they are ready. Authorities are free at any time to seek approval to change one project for another, or approval to start additional


projects which become ready. A meeting of this kind has already been held with representatives of Dunbartonshire County Council.

Mr. Rankin: I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's Answer that no such meeting was held with Glasgow City Corporation. Is he aware that the Glasgow City Corporation had prepared a planned educational building programme over the next four years to the value of £9·4 million and that he, without consultation, in one brutal cut reduced that amount to £3·8 million? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Corporation was seeking to get rid of slum schools, to modernise old schools and to build new secondary schools which are desperately needed? Will he reconsider his action, or does he want to make the slum school a permanent feature of Glasgow's educational life?

Mr. Noble: As to the hon. Gentleman's first point, no request has yet been received from the Glasgow education authority to meet my Department. It may well be that Glasgow wanted to appeal to the public rather than to my Department, but this is the fact.
With regard to the second part of the supplementary question, this is covered by various other Questions which will arise later.

Mr. Bence: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, contrary to what he said about consultation with the Dunbarton County Council, I have had serious complaints from the Burgh of Kirkintilloch and from Cumbernauld New Town about the fact that the primary programme for Cumbernauld New Town is to be continued but that the secondary programme for Kirkintilloch—

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman reach a question at some time? That is all we are allowed.

Mr. Bence: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the secondary programme for Kirkintilloch, which takes the secondary school students from the new town, is being savagely cut? Will he look into this matter again and see that both in Lenzie Academy and St. Ninian's adequate places are provided for the new pupils coming along in the new town of Cumbernauld?

Mr. Noble: The position is, as the hon. Gentleman says, that the education authority has had a meeting with representatives of my Department. Broadly speaking, they were in agreement on what should be done within the limit which they have, and if more money can be provided later I am sure they may be able to use it.

Mr. Rankin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I have your guidance? The right hon. Gentleman has just said that a Question of mine which he has answered is bound up with other Questions, and that points that I have raised are covered by Answers to these other Questions. In view of that fact, may I put another supplementary question to the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid not. Multitudinous supplementaries and long supplementaries are very unkind to other hon. Members.

Mr. Bence: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory state of secondary education in Kirkintilloch, I give notice that I shall take the first opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Small: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has for speeding up new school building and modernisation of schools in Glasgow.

Mr. McInnes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland why he has cut the Glasgow Corporation's plans for school building.

Mr. Noble: With my encouragement, Glasgow Corporation has now become a full member of the C.L.A.S.P. consortium; and I have authorised it to begin new schools in the current financial year to the value of £2·5 million. This is £400,000 more than the value of schools started last year, and is as large a share of the available investment as can be allowed at the moment. It is not possible at this stage to extend it to cover the Corporation's proposals for modernisation to the value of £300,000.

Mr. Small: While I am grateful for that Answer, in view of the human urgency of the matter will the Minister assist in getting rid of the over-sized classes and proceed with the modernisation of the primary schools in his minor works programme?

Mr. Noble: Certainly. If we can move a bit in this direction later in the year we shall, but I think Glasgow Corporation and my Department felt that at the beginning of this very considerable programme the money should be spent mostly on new schools which are urgently needed.

Mr. McInnes: Is the Minister aware that Glasgow sought approval for £7,900,000 and was granted approval for only £2,500,000? Does he not appreciate, as all previous Secretaries of State have appreciated, the need for phasing such a programme over a period of two or three years? This does not necessarily involve all the expenditure taking place in one year. The right hon. Gentleman is adopting a stupid attitude.

Mr. Noble: It may well be that in the future, because of the success of these consortia, we shall be able to move to a different method of building, but I do not think one can say that it is stupid to increase the already very substantial allocation that Glasgow has had by the amount we have done this year. The consortium cannot operate to any major extent on any building in this programme.

Mr. Ross: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that it is totally inadequate for the needs of Glasgow and that it has been consistently so over the years? Will he bear in mind that his own Report, to which I refer once again, shows that Glasgow has 12·6 per cent. of its classes overcrowded at present and that a special effort requires to be made by the Scottish Education Department, if not by the right hon. Gentleman, to ensure that the educational programme is maintained in Glasgow?

Mr. Noble: We are doing our best to maintain educational progress, and we have given Glasgow more as a start this year.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the cost of the three-year school building plan proposed to him by the Ayr County Council; and what was the cost of the programme he has allowed.

Mr. Noble: The total proposed for the three years 1963–66 was £7·3 million.

This included £2·3 million for 1963–64, of which I have so far approved £1 million.

Mr. Manuel: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a very grave cut and that over the period in question the total is less than half what the county council considers is required for the educational building programme? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is an even more grave aspect to this matter, namely, that by his lack of agreement with the Ayr County Council he is now causing it to ignore the statutory obligation to provide a sufficient number of school places for the children under its care? What reply has he to that allegation?

Mr. Noble: I think it is not unfair to say, although I am not keen to delve back into the past, that in 1961 the Ayrshire education authority spent only £100,000. In offering the county council £1 million for a start this year, that is quite a considerable increase.

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received following his decision to reduce by over £5½ million Glasgow Corporation's plan for educational building; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Noble: None, Sir. My Department is always available for a discussion of details of school building programmes.

Mr. Hannan: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it ill becomes him to allege in a sneering way, as he did earlier, that the local authority probably wanted to make a public appeal rather than an appeal to his Department? Is he aware that the association through which these local authorities act is at this moment preparing such an appeal to him? Since children have to be conveyed from the outlying housing estates into their former schools in Glasgow, with consequent increased pressure on transport, will he reconsider the decision he has made?

Mr. Noble: I was merely recording a fact when I said that there had been no representation. I am sure that Glasgow Corporation will in due course make


representations to me, and I shall then consider any points which it makes.

Sir M. Galpern: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland by how much he has reduced the school building programme for Glasgow in respect of new schools, modernisation of schools, and extensions of existing schools, respectively.

Mr. Noble: The difference between Glasgow's proposals and my initial authorisation, is for new schools £3,045,000; for modernisation of schools £297,000 and for extensions of existing schools £1,653,000.

Sir M. Galpern: Does the Secretary of State recall that in Comnd. 603, Education in Scotland—The Next Step, the Government characterised the continued use of antiquated and unsuitable buildings, many of the nineteenth century, as being one of the most serious shortcomings in their educational provision and asked the local authorities to deal speedily with the problem? How does he reconcile this policy of severe cuts with that declaration?

Mr. Noble: I have tried to make clear to the House that the policy is not one of severe cuts. The position is no more one of severe cuts than if I had offered the local education authorities an enormous sum of money and, if they failed to spend it, as they would have done regularly in the past, it would have been fair for me to say that they had let down the whole educational system. The authorisations are in line with what education authorities have been able to do in the past. If they meet their target, or look like meeting it, we shall then try to give them some further authorisations if we can.

Mr. Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman make up his mind on whether it is a question of money or a question of building resources? Is he aware that, while he was a black-faced sheep farmer before he came to the House, before I came to the House I was a pale-faced Glasgow school teacher? Will he think again about cutting down on the modernisation programme? Some of the conditions in some of these schools are really scandalous.

Mr. Noble: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in implying that it is one

or the other. It is obviously both. It would be completely uneconomic to allocate a very large amount of money which authorities could not spend because that money would not be available for other developments in Scotland. It is also a question of resources, because local authorities are having increased expenditure not only on schools but on housing, roads and all the other things, and resources must come into it.

Junior Secondary Schools (Extended Courses)

Mr. Lawson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what proportion of junior secondary schools in Scotland provide extended courses; and what proportion of the junior secondary school population follow those courses.

Mr. Noble: Details for the present session are not yet available centrally, but last session rather more than a quarter of the junior secondary schools or departments provided fourth-year courses, which were taken by about 2 per cent of pupils following junior secondary courses.

Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am not asking about fourth-year courses? I am asking about extended courses being provided in junior secondary schools. That is quite a different question from fourth-year courses. Will he tell us the number of extended courses which are being provided in junior secondary schools?

Mr. Noble: I should certainly like to see more done. I am afraid I have not got the exact figures for the extended courses but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, a working party on the linking of secondary education and further education is at work on this subject and we shall study its results.

Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these three-year junior secondary school courses, so far as they go, are dead-end courses? They lead nowhere. This is what we on this side of the House are concerned with. Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that these three-year courses at least have the possibility of opening up to four- or five-year or other types of courses?

Mr. Noble: There are at the moment certain intensive fourth-year courses of a vocational type in commerce and engineering. This is an excellent development.

Hydro-Electric Generation Schemes

Mr. Millan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many schemes of hydro-electric generation proposed by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board are awaiting authorisation.

Mr. Noble: Four schemes have been published by the Board. Objections have been lodged by various parties against three of these, and the statutory objection period for the fourth has not yet expired. Statutory inquiries will therefore be necessary before three of them can be authorised and may be necessary in the case of the fourth.

Mr. Millan: When will the Secretary of State take some action on these schemes? Does not his continued inaction coupled with the delay while the Mackenzie Committee was sitting completely frustrate hydro-electric development and, incidentally, is it not causing considerable unemployment in the Highlands among people who were previously employed on construction?

Mr. Noble: As I have said on several occasions in the House, I realise the urgency, but it is even more important to get the answer right.

Mr. John MacLeod: Will my right hon. Friend confirm what is said by the Hydro-Electric Board, that these schemes which have been published have been proved more economical than the most modern thermal scheme? If that is so, should not we be getting on with this work? As I understand it, the Board is using there the yardstick proposed by the Mackenzie Report.

Mr. Noble: I think that my hon. Friend is confusing the Mackenzie Committee's recommendations on costs, because the generating cost of the most recent thermal station which the South of Scotland Board is building has not yet been published.

Mr. Ross: Will the Secretary of State depart for the hills of Argyll and think this question over in relation to his rights

and responsibilities for the Highland areas? Is he aware that already, according to the Inverness Courier last week, it has been said that the bare unvarnished truth is that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to sell the pass?

Mr. Noble: I imagine that the Inverness Courier will not have failed to notice that a very large pulp mill is coming within its area.

Technical Colleges, Kilmarnock and Ayr

Mr. Ross: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the estimated cost of the technical colleges being built in Kilmarnock and Ayr, respectively; and how these figures compare with the first estimate given.

Mr. Noble: The original, highly speculative, estimate made by the education authority at a very early stage was that each would cost £250,000, and this was later increased to £500,000. Present estimates are for Ayr Technical College, £522,000, plus £211,000 for fees, furniture and equipment; and for Kilmarnock Technical College, £620,000, plus £282,000 for fees, furniture and equipment.

Mr. Ross: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the original estimate was given at a time when he was still a black-faced sheep farmer in Argyll, to quote his own words in one of the few speeches be ever made as a back bencher? Does he realise that we were told seven years ago—a couple of elections ago—by the late and respected Member, James Henderson-Stewart, that this had first priority, and is he satisfied that sufficient importance and urgency has been given to the project by his Department, since neither of these colleges is yet completed?

Mr. Noble: I am not satisfied that nothing could have been done to speed it up, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, in 1959, which was just after I ceased to be a black-faced sheep breeder, the estimate had gone up to £500,000. Before that, the delays were very largely due to questions of acquisition of land.

Lobster Stocks, Orkney and Shetland

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps are being taken to assess lobster stocks round


Orkney and Shetland; and whether he has any evidence that stocks are in danger of being depleted.

Mr. Noble: My Department's scientists are doing this by sampling the fishing grounds, measuring samples of the lobsters caught and studying data of the catch in relation to fishing effort. Present indications are that the lobster stocks in these waters are not in danger of being overfished.

Mr. Grimond: I am somewhat reassured by that Answer, as far as it goes, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that great efforts are being made to extend the lobster and crab fisheries and that it seems that this may well result in the end in some diminution of stocks? Does he agree that his Department might well now do some research into artificial stimulation of these stocks and methods of breeding?

Mr. Noble: I am aware that there was a proposal to have artificial hatcheries for lobster stocks in the Orkneys. If any proposals of this kind are put to me, my Department will, I am quite certain, do everything it can to help.

Pulp and Paper Mill, Fort William

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will estimate the cost to local authorities, and other public bodies, of providing roads, water, power, houses, schools, medical facilities and transport in connection with the pulp and paper mill development at Fort William.

Mr. Noble: Identifiable extra investment in roads, water and sewerage, houses, and schools will be about £2½ million. No major items of extra investment in power or medical facilities are foreseen, and I have no figure for investment in railways.

Mr. Willis: This is a very large sum and the rateable value in these areas is, of course, very low. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to consider further assistance to local authorities or is he prepared even to look at Clause 9 of the present Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Bill which penalises development areas where populations are increasing?

Mr. Noble: The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that the annual

cost of 166 new houses to the Burgh of Fort William is estimated at approximately £5,300, as compared with housing and Exchequer equalisation grants totalling £19,000. The corresponding figure for Inverness County Council is, for 420 houses, a cost to the council of £8,500 per annum, with grants of £45,000. The Government are bearing a very fair share.

Beeching Report (Representations)

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has had from Scottish local authorities and other bodies about the effect of the Beeching Report on the Scottish economy.

Mr. Noble: So far, more than twenty local authorities or other bodies have made representations to me.

Mr. Manuel: Is the Secretary of State aware that he simply classifies among other bodies important Scottish associations such as the Tourist Board and the North of Scotland Association, which is being formed to deal with this matter? Is this not a very loose classification which he is giving us? Would he not agree that all these bodies are definite in saying that if the Beeching Report were put into operation, for the seven Highland counties and Scotland generally it would be an impediment to economic growth? Will the Secretary of State give an assurance, quite apart from the one he has given concerning roads, that if the removal of the railways is likely to stop industrial location, he will safeguard the position for Scotland by carrying out his duty as Secretary of State for the country?

Mr. Noble: I made my position very clear on this mtter on Monday night. There is nothing more one can say at the moment, because these are only proposals.

Mr. Grimond: Was the right hon. Gentleman's own development unit in the Scottish Office in touch with Dr. Beeching before the Report was drawn up? If so, what representations did it make?

Mr. Noble: No. My development department and department group came into the picture only after Dr. Beeching had produced his Report.

Bronchitis

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has investigated the reasons for the high death rate from bronchitis in Scotland; and what plans he has to deal with the situation.

Mr. Noble: Yes, Sir. I recently published a comprehensive report on bronchitis which has received wide publicity, as explained in my reply of 6th March to the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson).

Mr. Woodburn: Is the Secretary of State aware that, apart from the high mortality, because of the great distress that this disease causes and the great economic loss to the country, the best way to deal with it is to prevent it? Is he prepared to adopt an educational method of getting the young people to realise that healthy living, fresh air and exercise are the best ways of preventing bronchitis?

Mr. Noble: Publicity on all these matters is very important. It is only two months since the Report was published and we cannot already expect to see the results of the efforts which the local authorities are making in this respect.

Science and Mathematics Teachers

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has now given further consideration to the appointment of principal teachers of science and mathematics on a basis similar to that for principal teachers of Latin and Greek; and when he will announce his decision.

Mr. Noble: As I indicated in my reply to the hon. Member on 3rd April, I am re-examining the provisions of the Schools (Scotland) Code regarding posts of responsibility, but I cannot yet say when it will be possible to announce decisions.

Mr. Hannan: When considering this matter, will the Secretary of State beat in mind—while not disparaging either teachers or students of the classics—the increasing importance of science and mathematics in industry and commerce and the great shortage of teachers in both of these subjects? If the basis of

appointment of principal teachers of the classics is to double the number of teaching hours, will he consider using that same basis?

Mr. Noble: I have considered that problem. The position is that science and mathematics are taken by so many pupils that the appointment of principal teachers is justified under the existing rules in all but the very small schools.

Local Authorities (Chiropody Treatment)

Mr. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many local authorities in Scotland provide chiropodist treatment; and how many do not provide such treatment.

Mr. Noble: All local health authorities in Scotland have made arrangements to provide chiropody treatment for the elderly, twenty-five of them by employment of chiropists on a full-time or part-time basis and the remaining thirty by agreement with voluntary organisations.

Mr. Hill: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer, may I ask whether it would not be better if they were all employed full-time in providing this necessary service for the old people who cannot afford to go to the ordinary practitioner, thereby making sure that they are all covered by this service, which they cannot afford out of their miserable pensions? Will the Secretary of State carry out this suggestion?

Mr. Noble: I will certainly look into it. The local authorities are, however, providing a very good service and I have heard no complaints of failure in dealing with the elderly.

Agricultural Workers (Weekly Earnings)

Mr. Stodart: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the average weekly earnings of regular adult male agricultural workers in Scotland during the most recent 12-month period for which these figures are available; the average weekly hours worked; and the average weekly value of payments in kind received by these men over the same period.

Mr. Noble: The average total earnings of regular adult male agricultural workers in Scotland for the 12-month period


ended 31st December, 1962, were £10 18s. a week. The average weekly value of payments in kind received as part of total earnings was 18s. The average weekly hours worked were 47·9 excluding the customary hours worked by shepherds, grieves and stewards which are not statutorily fixed.

Mr. Stodart: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a few weeks ago, figures of a similar nature were given for England and Wales and that according to my mental arithmetic it would be true to say that, despite the lower basic rate which Scottish farm workers enjoy, the rates earned per hour are higher than those in England and Wales? Is not this a considerable tribute to the system which we enjoy in Scotland of classifying farm workers under specialist groups?

Mr. Noble: My hon. Friend is right. The earnings in England are 6s. more. but for three hours longer a week, so that in Scotland we are doing better.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Can the Secretary of State confirm that a man, wife and three children will get almost as much on National Assistance as the man would get by a wage, as indicated in the Answer? Does the right hon. Gentleman regard this as part of the Tory affluent society?

Mr. Noble: I am delighted to say that agricultural workers prefer working to sitting back and drawing money from the State.

Local Government (Expenditure and Interest Charges)

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the total value of local government rate-borne expenditure for the years 1950–51 and 1962–63, respectively, and the total amount of interest charges paid by Scottish local authorities for each of these years.

Mr. Noble: Rate-borne expenditure of Scottish local authorities in 1950–51 was £32·2 million and interest charges amounted to £8·6 million. Information for 1962–63 is not yet available, but provisional figures for 1961–62 are £93·6 million and £42·9 million, respectively.

Mr. Hoy: Do not these figures prove just how intolerable the burden is becoming for local authorities in Scot-

land because of the high interest rates which are being forced upon them by the policy of the Government? What will the Secretary of State do about it?

Mr. Noble: If the hon. Member had asked me, I might have told him that the amount of Exchequer grants went up in roughly the same period from £39·9 million to £113·4 million. I regard this as fair. The question of interest rates is, surely, connected with grants, and the grants take into account the interest rates current at the time.

Mr. Hoy: The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that this intolerable increase of nearly 500 per cent. in the interest rates over this period makes the burden upon local authorities intolerable. What is he doing to ease the burden that this is causing to local authorities?

Mr. Noble: I have already answered the hon. Member. The Government have increased their grants by nearly four times. I regard this as easing the burden.

Housing Loans (Interest Charges)

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the total interest charges, repayable over 60 years, incurred by local authorities in Scotland for a house built at a cost of £2,000 in the years 1950–51 and 1962–63, respectively.

Mr. Noble: The annual charge for a 60-year loan of £2,000 raised at Public Works Loan Board rates in 1950–51 would be £72 1s. 6d. and today £118 19s. 4d.

Mr. Hoy: This has nothing to do with the grant. We would like to know, first, who is collecting this money. Indeed, when the figures prove that the Secretary of State has increased the cost of a house by nearly 50 per cent. per annum by interest charges, is it not about time that the right hon. Gentleman directed his attention to this on-cost in housing rather than tried to extract the last penny from municipal tenants and put the blame upon them for what, in fact, has been the policy of the Government?

Mr. Noble: The hon. Gentleman continues to quote gross figures. If the grant is taken into consideration the rise is nothing like that.

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

Under-developed Countries (Living Standards)

Mr. Prentice: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th May, I shall call attention to the need for more dynamic policies to help to raise living standards in the under-developed countries, and move a Resolution.

University and Higher Education

Mr. Boyden: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th May, I shall call attention to the need for expanding university and higher education, and move a Resolution.

British Industries (Export Potential)

Mr. Rhodes: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th May, I shall call attention to the need for a full appraisal of the export potential of individual British industries, and move a Resolution.

COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Frank Bowles: Mr. Speaker, I beg to draw your attention and that of the House to what I regard as a gross breach of Privilege on page 2 of today's Daily Express. Under the heading:
Heath and Harry go a-wooing
there appear these words:
The British Cabinet, in a big 'wooing the Germans' campaign, has decided to send the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, on an official visit to Bonn.

And Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier, the Speaker of the Bundestag—Lower House—is to pay a reciprocal official visit to London. Details of the exchange of visits are not yet complete, but they will be on a lavish scale. The exchange fits in with other plans to build up a close Anglo-German association, and the first move is a visit to Germany by Lord Privy Seal Mr. Edward Heath. Mr. Heath, who was in charge of Britain's Common Market negotiations, is known in Germany as Britain's Minister for Europe. He has let the Germans know that membership of the Common Market is still his aim, and has been given the task of whipping-up German support. Mr. Heath arrives on Thursday for a four-day visit to Hamburg, Hanover, and Berlin. He will give a big Press conference on Thursday and later will address a top-level gathering of German industrialists in Hamburg's Uebersse Klub, before a banquet. His speech has already been billed to be a major policy one. The title: 'Great Britain and Europe.' The next day he travels to Hanover, where Germany's future Chancellor, Dr. Ludwig Erhard, will join him on the platform for a conference on the 'continuation of European integration'. The day is rounded off with another big banquet for Mr. Heath given by Dr. Erhard. Saturday—a trip to Berlin for a meeting with Mayor Willy Brandt. And on Sunday he will meet the Allied Commandants before flying back to London.
You, Sir, are our Speaker, the Speaker of our House, not a tool of the British Government or the British Cabinet. You act as directed by this House. The clear inference here is that the British Cabinet is using your official position to further a highly controversial policy. Accordingly. I ask you to rule that here is a prima facie breach of Privilege.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member be good enough to bring me the newspaper, which I have to have? I will rule on his complaint tomorrow, after taking 24 hours for reflection, guidance, and pondering the precedents.

Copy of newspaper handed in.

Orders of the Day — CONTRACTS OF EMPLOYMENT BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause.—(TERMS OF CONTRACTS OF EMPLOYMENT IN RELATION TO ASSOCI ATIONS OF EMPLOYERS AND TRADES UNIONS.)

A contract of employment made between an employer who, at the time of the commencement of that employment is a member of an association of employers, and an employee who, at the said time, is a member of a trade union of employees shall (by implication and unless the contrary be expressly stated in the said contract) contain as terms of the said contract such of the terms and conditions of any contract between the said association and the said union as relate to the employment aforesaid; and notwithstanding any provision contained in or having effect under any Act of Parliament passed before this Act such a contract of employment (including the said terms and conditions implied therein as aforesaid) shall be valid and any breach thereof or any wrongful inducement or conspiracy to cause a breach thereof shall be actionable.—[Mr. Page.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
In Committee on the Bill there were discussions from time to time concerning the enforceability or unenforceability of collective agreements, both agreements made between an employer, and employers' federations, and the trade unions. Of course, modern industry and modern industrial relations would be quite impossible without such agreements, but, in fact, collective agreements of that sort are not recognised by the law. Under Section 4(4) of the Trades Unions Act, 1871, no legal proceedings shall be instituted with the object of enforcing any agreement made between one trade union and another, and in that context "trade union" means not only a union of employees, but a union or association of employers.
The Committee, in discussing these matters, certainly rejected any alteration of the law making such collective agreements enforceable or, indeed, penalising in any way the breach of such agree-

ments. My right hon. Friend the Minister maintained that the Bill dealt with, and should only deal with, contracts between the individual employer and the individual employee. In this new Clause I have respected that principle. I have dealt with the contract as it may be between the employer and the employee and not directly with any collective agreements between an employers' federation and a trade union.
However, if one is dealing with individual contracts of employment at all, then surely it is quite unrealistic to shut one's eyes to the collective agreements which stand behind these individual contracts of employment. So far as they affect an individual employer and individual employee entering into a contract with each other, these collective agreements are and must be part of the individual contract, if the parties are members of a union or an employers' federation respectively.
It is my submission that they ought to be recognised as such, so the first part of the Clause would make it clear that the relevant terms of the relevant collective agreement are part of the individual contract provided that the collective agreement is between the federation of which the employer is a member and the union of which the employee is a member. After all, that is surely what the parties intend to be the result of their membership of such federations or unions, that they will be bound by agreements which their union or federation makes on their behalf. Surely that is the whole intention of membership of a union.
So much for the employee and the employers themselves, the actual contracting parties to a contract of employment, but it should follow, surely, from that, that others should not be permitted wrongfully to cause a breach of that contract. The law does not normally allow third parties to induce one contracting party to break his contract with another except in one particular instance, and that is under Section 3 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. That Section says that:
An act done in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment".


So the position is that a trade union and an employers' federation may solemnly reach an agreement vital to the interests of the members of each and with the full agreement that it should be observed by their members, and yet we let any Tom, Dick or Harry bully or cajole an individual to treat his contract with contempt. We not only let any outside party like that induce another to break his contract but we give him something of a legal right to do so. So the second part of the new Clause endeavours to prohibit anyone from interfering with that part of a collective agreement which has become a contract between the individuals.
I hope that it will not be suggested by hon. Members opposite, or, indeed, by any of my colleagues, that this is in any way an attack on trade unions or their rights by taking away any right or privilege or exemption or freedom which has been granted to a trade union. Section 3 of the 1906 Act gives no right whatsoever to a trade union as such. All it does is to give a right to an individual to undermine a trade union agreement.
I believe that, if accepted, the new Clause would strengthen trade union agreements. Indeed, that is my genuine and honest intention. The argument is sometimes put that the employer-employee relationship is a human relationship and that one ought not to contaminate it with any form of legal contract. I take a different view. I believe that any human relationship is far better if its terms are properly defined and if, in the last resort, it is enforceable. I believe that if that is done one seldom reaches that last resort.
Nor does one have to resort to taking the law into one's hands, which is frequently the result of the present absence of law in connection with collective agreements between unions of employers and employees. I believe that the Clause would really strengthen those agreements and prevent them from being undermined by irresponsible persons.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: I think that the House ought to be clearly aware of what importance attaches to the proposed Clause. We want to be quite sure that we are interpreting it correctly and interpreting correctly the intention

of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page).
As I understand it, the effect of the Clause would be to repeal a Section of the 1906 Trades Disputes Act. That Act and that Section are of cardinal importance in the history of industrial relations in this country. The provisions of the Act do not have any particular bearing upon wildcat and unofficial strikes and matters of that kind. They are of cardinal significance in what may be described, contrariwise, as legitimate collective action by workers in furtherance of a trade dispute. For the hon. Member to argue that in the fashion which is proposed in the Clause that hard-won privilege should be abandoned by the House is remarkable.
I would remind the House of the effect of Section 3 of the 1906 Act. It states that
An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or is an interference with the trade, business or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labour as he wills.
It is true that the right conferred by the Section is a very wide one but, manifestly, it confers a privilege upon, among others, trade union officials and properly and correctly sponsored representatives of the union concerned to induce in the manner referred to by the Section. For the hon. Member to suggest that his Clause can be rationally regarded as a provision that is likely to assist the trade unions in the performance of their duties and obligations is, I should have thought, quite unacceptable not only to hon. and right hon. Members on this side of the House, but to other hon. Members on both sides of the House.
That, then, is the effect of the proposed Clause. But it is not the only defect, as I understand it. The Clause, even if it would not repeal it, would for all practical purposes override the effect of Section 4(4) of the Trades Unions Act, 1871.

Mr. Graham Page: Mr. Graham Page indicated assent.

Mr. Irvine: I am obliged to the hon. Member for indicating by a nod that he agrees with that interpretation of the effect of the Clause.
The 1871 Act provides, in Section 4, that
Nothing in this Act shall enable any court to entertain any legal proceeding instituted with the object of directly enforcing or recovering damages far the breach of any of the following agreements".
Those are then listed, and the fourth is:
Any agreement made between one trade union and another.
It seems to me that the Clause, in its fashion of overriding that section of the 1871 Act, adopts, quite apart from the merits, an undesirably clandestine method. What I conceive that the hon. Member seeks to do is to evade the consequences of that provision in the 1871 Act by incorporating the provisions in the collective agreements arrived at between employers associations and trade unions in the individual contract made between employers and employees, and making the terms of the collective agreements enforceable inside the individual contract. This is not only, in our view, therefore, an undesirable thing to do but, additionally, an undesirable way of doing it.
In our consideration of the Bill on Second Reading and in Standing Committee, we have throughout taken the line—I think that it will be generally acknowledged—that the Bill has some, albeit extremely limited, advantages in offering minimal security to the employees in certain classes of employment and in making provisions which will enable the workers to have better information than they have at present about the terms of employment under which they are working, and which are binding.
From that point of view we have given some support to particular provisions of the Bill, and our endeavours have been directed to a constructive attempt to improve these features of the Bill. The moment that anyone suggests, as is suggested now and has been suggested before, that the Bill should be made the occasion for introducing matters which are derogatory of hard-won trade union rights—which is how we see it—we become immediately and implacably resistant. That is our attitude to the new Clause.
These objections to the new Clause are objections in principle and are much more important than the more specific objections which could be made, but I wish additionally to suggest to the House

that for it to be provided by Statute that it shall be an implied term in the individual contracts between employers and employees that the terms and conditions of any contract between the employers' association and the union shall be the terms of the individual contract is an expression much too vague to be acceptable to lawyers. It would give rise to endless difficulties and would inevitably involve extension into the principles and rules which govern the implication of terms in contracts to which the courts give consideration.
But that is a secondary and relatively technical point. Our main objection to the new Clause is on important principle.

Mr. John Robertson: While I do not expect that the House will agree to the new Clause, I feel that we should say something about this matter. I hope that I can bring the discussion down from the legal stratosphere to the Floor of the House. I am interested in this matter as it would affect the trade union official and the worker in the factory.
The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) said that it was wrong to allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to induce people to break a contract. But what if it is Frank or Sir William? This is where the problem arises. One of the facts of industrial life is that there is no clearly defined way of altering an existing contract. The hon. Member said that the new Clause was not an attack on trade unions; but that is exactly what it is. It is not an attack on any Tom, Dick or Harry, but on the trade union officials, on the shop stewards, on officially appointed trade union representatives.
I had occasion to say during a previous discussion on the Bill that the attitudes of trade unions were mainly reactions to decisions by employers and to circumstances in industry and in particular to the problems associated with negotiation in industry. Hon. Members opposite have to decide on one vital point of principle: do they wish the present system of free negotiation in industry to continue? If they say that they do, they must also accept that both sides of industry must be free to exert pressure when needed. Otherwise, there would be nothing to prevent negotiations from


being prolonged beyond reason, or carried out in a thoroughly negative manner.
The probable alternative to the existing situation if the new Clause were accepted would be that all negotiations in all firms on all questions, if the firms were members of the employers' association, would be carried out by national officials. There would be no flexibility and no negotiations at local level. It might be said that that is stretching it too far, but that is how I read the new Clause. There would obviously have to be provided methods whereby local managements and workpeople could initiate their own negotiations, even if a firm were a member of an employers' association. It must also be agreed that it would be desirable in such circumstances for individual managements and workpeople to be able to reach settlements to their own satisfaction.
It may help the hon. Member for Crosby to understand what I am trying to get at if I quote part of the Agreement for the Avoidance of Disputes in the Engineering Industry. Clause (d)11 states:
Employers and Shop Stewards and Works Committees shall not be entitled to enter into any agreement inconsistent with agreements between the Federation or Local Association and the Trade Unions.
It may well be considered inconsistent for a local management to enter into agreement with local shop stewards to pay a rate of wages higher than that laid down in the national minimum. Yet that is now the accepted way in industry of finding the true level of wages. National negotiations merely lay down the national minimum and the real level of wages is determined by local negotiations. There are many faults with this system. It is a method of subsidising the inefficient firm and also subsidising a firm located in some rather remote area, but it also allows a measure of flexibility which would be denied if the Clause were accepted.
To make industrial agreements enforceable in law and to make any breach of such an agreement actionable would inevitably produce a reaction among the trade unions who would require to seek an appropriate remedy. For better or worse, the decisions of trade unions and the policies of trade unions are not promulgated from above. They are based

on and are the result of pressure from below, from the workshop, which is how it should be. But this requires flexibility in negotiation. Workpeople must be able to demand from a management or group of managements the revision of existing contracts and, if the management or group of managements is unreasonable, to stop work in pursuit of their case. The new Clause would obviously have the effect of discontinuing the present arrangement whereby local arrangements can be made for improving minimum rates of wages and working conditions laid down in national agreements.
The effect of this would be that trade unions in national negotiations would have to fix higher levels of wages, and possibly adopt the tactics of the American unions. In America, certain firms are picked on for the establishment of the pattern of wages and conditions, and all other firms then have to follow suit. This system would not be to the advantage of British industrialists.

Mr. Graham Page: Surely in national agreements there is permission for the making of local arrangements which would be part and parcel of the national agreements. Therefore, the new Clause would not prevent such local negotiations.

Mr. Robertson: The hon. Member has not got this quite right. It might amaze him to know that it is a matter of conjecture whether trade unions have the right nationally to demand a meeting of the National Engineering Employers' Association. These things are largely based on custom and practice and not on written agreement. It is a matter of the way the thing has grown up, but new problems would be raised if the Clause were made law. Present agreements would have to be reconsidered and recast in the light of the new situation. It may be rather silly, but that is the way that the thing has grown up, and I think that it has been a jolly good way, because it has provided the flexibility necessary to meet difficult situations. We do not need to look at the book of words whenever a problem arises.
But all that has been in relation to the employer who is a member of an employers' association. I was waiting to


hear from the hon. Member what was likely to be the position of a firm which was not a member, and the majority of engineering firms are not members of the employers' association. [HON. MEMBERS: "It does not matter."] Does it not? Are we clear about that? The history of the law relating to trade unions is such that even if I were a lawyer I would hesitate to pronounce on this question. It seems to me that once we breach the law as laid down in the Acts of 1871 and 1906, we open the door to allowing other things to happen.
One of the virtues of industrial relations and negotiations in Great Britain has been the absence of lawyers when agreements have been made. Although agreements might have made legal nonsense, at least the parties to them have been able to understand exactly what was meant and what the intentions were. If there was any difficulty, they had custom and practice to guide them.
I think that any suggestion that there should be any alteration at all of the law relating to trade union agreements and to questions of inducement of people to break their contracts would be thoroughly bad. I believe that it is true to say that it was on the Floor of this House that these protections were given—and for very good reason. It would be surely wrong that from this House a Clause should emerge in a Bill of this kind, dealing with periods of notice and payments to be made during those periods, in which any such new principle should be injected. I hope that the House will not accept the Clause.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. David Renton: If I have followed the hon. Gentleman rightly, he is saying that the trade union law between the Statutes of 1871 and 1946 is sound, that it is like the law of the Medes and Persians and should never be altered. Is he really saying that, because, if so, I think that he should realise that there are a great many people outside the trade union movement who think that many of those inside it are living in a dream-world, deluding themselves that the present law is perfect?

Mr. Robertson: I would not say or accept that. My mind runs in a rather different direction. I think that there is

not sufficient protection for trade unions and that there is not sufficient disability brought upon the employers; but we will not argue that now.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I wish to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) in expressing strong opposition to this new Clause. I do not want to be impertinent to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), or to impute any wrong motives to him. I recognise that he is an expert in the law, and that I am not. I want to follow a point that I thought that my hon. Friend might have come to on this question of companies which are members of federations and companies which are not members. There are what we call the federated firms and the non-federated firms.
As I read the Clause, if a company is a member of, for example, the British Employers' Confederation—and worked for many years for an employer who was a loyal member—that company would be inhibited from pursuing any wages or conditions of employment terms different from those reached by the federation of which it is a member with the trade union, either one trade union or a group of trade unions, covering the classes of labour employed.

Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Gentleman has not read the words in parenthesis in the fourth line, which are:
(… unless the contrary be expressly stated in the said contract …
It is open to the parties expressly to state that the collective agreement does not apply to them.

Mr. Bence: Therefore, any firm in a federation of employers could contract out of the national agreement with the trade unions in order to give different conditions to its employees in that industrial unit, whether they were superior conditions or inferior conditions. I presume that that is what the hon. Member means.

Mr. Graham Page: They can do that now.

Mr. Bence: Of course they can. Therefore, as I read the new Clause there must be some other motive for it than the creating, as it were, throughout the country of one solid basis of uniform


agreement or wage pattern. The hon. Member concedes that this Clause makes provision for variation of agreements as between the employer and his employee. But he uses the phrase,
… any wrongful inducement or conspiracy.
to change the conditions of those contracts.
All sorts of inducements are used. Some people may call them wrongful either on the part of the employer or of the workpeople. But what about companies that are not in these associations? Will they not have a superior position in negotiating with employers or groups of employers with firms that are in the federation? Will they not be able, by all sorts of inducements, to attract labour—I am not saying that it is a bad thing that they should—and have greater freedom by not being members of an association?
May not the ultimate result of such a Clause as this be that an industry or production unit of some kind that is not a member of the trade association will be able to break through the minimal conditions and go outside the general agreement laid down by the trade union and the federation, because, as my hon. Friend said, quite rightly, they are minimal conditions? Every employer today, without this new Clause, is free to negotiate with his group of employees—whether in a car or any other factory—and can negotiate conditions far superior to those laid down as minimal conditions. Surely the tendancy might be, for federated firms and national agreements under this Clause, to create a uniform standard. The only people who might find it quite easy to move out of that standard would be those firms which are not members of the association.
When my hon. Friend said that members outside that association would be free to do this, hon. Members opposite said "Not at all". They disagree with him. They cannot have it both ways. If they are outside the association, they have freedom to negotiate other terms and conditions outside the national agreements between the trade unions and the British Employers' Confederation. Does not this give them an advantage in the movement and attraction of labour over firms which are subject to national agree-

ments made by trade unions with the British Employers' Confederation?

Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Gentleman is framing his remarks in the form of a question to me, so I must answer them. The new Clause deals only with collective agreements between employers within an association and members of the trade unions. If an employer is outside the association, he will have the same advantages or disadvantages as he has at present, and the new Clause does not attempt to touch those.

Mr. Bence: That is my point. In my view, the new Clause limits the capacity of inducement of federated firms which make agreements with the trade union movement as against non-federated firms which make agreements with the trade union movement. I do not wish to be dogmatic, but this is how the new Clause struck me when I read it, that it gives greater freedom and advantage to firms having national agreements with the national trade union movement over firms which are members of associations. They would be tied by the new Clause to national agreements and would be in danger of breach of that agreement if they use a "wrongful inducement", whatever that means.
Nothing that the hon. Member for Crosby has said makes me feel that my interpretation of his new Clause is wrong. Unless I can be assured that I am wrong, I hope that my hon. Friends will divide the Committee against the new Clause, because I think that it is a most dangerous proposal and certainly would not give justice as between non-federated firms and federated firms. If accepted, it would undermine the function of the trade union movement and individual executives of companies in using their expertise, efficiency and organisation to provide better conditions and to give better remuneration in the most efficient plants.

Mr. Aidan Crawley: I did not intend to intervene, but I have been led into doing so by the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), which were not, I think, relevant to the new Clause. It seemed to me that what he was saying was that, whatever change has to be accepted by others in this country, and whatever privileges


have to be whittled down as society evolves, the privileges which under no circumstances shall ever be touched are those which have been won and are enjoyed by trade unions. Everybody else must be modernised. That, fundamentally, was what the horn, and learned Member was saying, but it is not relevant to this new Clause.
What the new Clause tries to do is to strengthen and not impinge on free negotiation engaged in between trade unions and employers' associations. As I understand it, the new Clause seeks to provide that nothing in the Bill shall invalidate agreements freely negotiated and entered into by trade unions and employers, and that if both sides freely accept obligations together they shall not use the Bill as a means of evading them. I should have thought that every hon. Member would agree that that was a desirable object.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Anything which preserves the sanctity of contracts is to be admired, and the spirit behind the new Clause is to be commended. But in its literal interpretation I have some grave doubts about it, because it seems to me that it seems to elevate to a superior position collective contracts of employment over individual contracts of employment. Rightly or wrongly, individual contracts of employment between a master and an employee can be interfered with under the doctrines of the 1871 and 1906 Acts, not only by trade union officials, as was explained by the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) but by other people, and nothing in the new Clause would prevent that from happening.
However, if the new Clause were passed, collective contracts could not be interfered with. It seems to me that that is not right. Individual contracts are, I believe, far more sacred because they are more freely entered into than collective contracts. What with the instance of the closed shop and the pressure, not only among employees but also among masters, to join trade associations and trade unions, it does not seem to me that collective contracts have a greater sanctity than individual contracts.
Nevertheless, if the new Clause is passed the contract freely entered into between an employer and an employee on an individual basis can still be interfered with in the way that the 1871 and 1906 Acts permit, whereas large group contracts in respect of which the consensus ad idem between the individual employee and the individual employer is much more remote and much more forced are given a superior status.
For that reason, I do not think that the new Clause is right.

Mr. Graham Page: I think that my hon. and learned Friend is misreading the new Clause. It starts with the words:
A contract of employment made between an employer … and an employee
and in the latter part still talks about the contract of employment between the employer and the employee. Therefore, the latter part refers to the individual contract and not only to the terms of the collective agreement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. William Whitelaw): I understand entirely the purposes of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) in moving the new Clause. Before I deal with it, however, I should like to point out to the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) that I propose to spend a minute or two in an area as rare to me as it is to him, namely, the legal stratosphere. Having done that, I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will return to the Floor of the House and to the implications of the Clause on the shop floor.
The first aim of the new Clause appears to be to ensure that the terms of any relevant collective agreement are imported into the employee's contract by implication unless the contract expressly states the contrary. This part of the new Clause is, I understand, intended as a means of assisting the enforcement of collective agreements. There must be some doubt as to whether it would be a useful addition to the existing provisions. It seeks to import the terms of a collective agreement into the contracts of members of the associations on both sides which have made the agreement unless the contract expressly provides otherwise.
The provisions of a collective agreement reached between representative organisations in an industry are usually terms of the contract, whether expressly


or impliedly so. Under the Terms and Conditions of Employment Act, if, on a reference to the Industrial Court, an employer is shown not to be observing the established terms and condition, the court can make an award which is legally binding on it. It is perhaps worth noting that under the Clause the terms of a collective agreement would be binding only on members of the associations which made the agreement. The machinery provided by the Terms and Conditions of Employment Act goes wider and makes it possible to require the observance of established terms and conditions by non-federated employers as well.
Secondly, the new Clause seeks to make a breach of any contract which incorporates the terms of a collective agreement actionable, and also to make any
wrongful inducement or conspiracy to cause a breach
of such a contract actionable.
What strikes one first is that it is a little surprising to limit this kind of provision to one kind of contract only—that is to say, to contracts the terms of which are imported from collective agreements. This would be a very arbitrary line of demarcation, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby would agree.
Now I return to the shop floor. In a factory, where some of the workpeople belong to a union—

Mr. J. Robertson: Mr. J. Robertson rose—

Mr. Whitelaw: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I do not give way now. I am only too ready to give way to him, but I should like to finish what I am saying.
In a factory where some of the workpeople belong to a trade union and some do not, the contracts of employment of the trade unionists would be subject to this provision, but the contracts of those outside the union would not. I do not think that there really can be a basis for such a distinction.
It is also surprising that the Clause should state that a breach of contract of this kind would be actionable. It is surprising because a breach of contract of employment is already actionable, and the Clause, therefore, in this respect only states what is already the law. And in so far as it only applies to contracts of

employment of a particular kind, it might seem to imply that other contracts of employment are not enforceable at law, which would be an unfortunate implication.
Now I turn to what my hon. Friend made quite clear is the real point of the Clause. This is that any wrongful inducement or conspiracy to cause a breach of this kind of contract should also become actionable at law. As I understand it, the intention is that someone who induces another person to go on strike or to take other coercive action in breach of contract, or a number of people who combine for this purpose, would be liable to be sued in tort by the other party to the contract for inducing the breach. But, as was pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), this would alter the effect of Sections 1 and 3 of the Trades Disputes Act, 1906, which gives immunity from legal actions of this kind.
Clearly, this provision is aimed at a man who takes the lead in an unofficial strike or in some other form of disruptive action in breach of contract. Very often in Committee upstairs and in this Chamber it has been shown that hon. Members are at one in condemning such unconstitutional action, which is damaging both to our economy and to industrial relations. We would all welcome any practicable way of reducing and discouraging it. What we have to decide is whether this Clause would be an effective provision towards this end.
Almost invariably, the person we have described would be an employee who is himself taking part in the unofficial strike. He can, of course, already be sued for breach of contract. He hardly ever is. The employer knows that he cannot recover worthwhile damages and is in any case unwilling to embitter relations with his employees by taking legal action. We must ask whether this new Clause would give much greater incentive to the employer to bring such an action. He would know that even if he were awarded substantial damages he would be very lucky if he were able to recover them. The risk of embittering relations with his employees would remain and might be increased. The employer would surely wonder whether, by bringing an action, he might not end up by making a martyr of the defendant.
I have sought, in answer to a serious endeavour on a serious matter by my hon. Friend, to put forward what I believe to be the difficulties in accepting a provision of this kind. I must return to what has frequently been said by my right hon. Friend and by me in Committee—that the Bill is not a suitable place to include a provision of this kind. The Bill has two purposes. The first is to lay down minimum rights to notice and the second is to require employers to inform their employees in writing of the main terms of employment. This Clause strays far beyond those purposes.
I hope that I have been able to convince my hon. Friend that there really are practical difficulties in the way of the Clause and that for those reasons it would appear very unlikely that the Clause would have any real effect in carrying out what my hon. Friend has in mind. In addition, the Bill is not the place for it. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend, after this interesting debate, feels able to withdraw the Clause.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: This is a most commendable effort by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) to bring a most important provision to the Floor of the House. I would be happier to accede to the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that we should not pursue it further if he had gone further himself in indicating that the Government would take positive action by legislation to deal with the type of situation covered by the Clause. From our discussions in Committee upstairs, and the speeches both of hon. Members opposite and of my hon. Friends, it is clear that very serious legislative consideration is being given to severance and redundancy payments and to general improvement of the position as between employers and unions.
It is partly true that this new Clause seeks to amend Section 4(4) of the Trade Unions Act, 1871. That subsection prevents one from having an action for damages as between one union and another, be they unions of employers or of labour. I take the view that it is time that it was amended. It is out of date and not in accordance with modern conditions. It is also time that we altered

Section 3 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. It is a thing of the past and out of keeping with modern conditions. Where possible, we can get an enforce-ability of contracts with plenty of good will on both sides of industry.
This Clause would put some contracts in a superior position. It is one thing to deal with a contract where the employee is not a member of a union and the employer is not a member of an employers' association. They may enter into a contract quite freely. But the case is different where there has been a long period of collective bargaining, such as with the contracts of the electricity and gas industries, which are drawn up between parties with detailed representation from both sides. These contracts are negotiated by gigantic men of industry—the union men throwing down 3 million votes on one side and the employers' representatives speaking for whole industries on the other—and they guarantee that their employers and employees will honour the contract.
What lies behind this Clause is the pursuit of that type of policy. If we find, for instance, that the E.T.U. or the Transport and General Workers' Union have freely negotiated a contract, we have to consider carefully whether, if there is a breach of that contract by either side, there is any reason why there should not be an enforcement by way of damages in respect of the breach.
4.30 p.m.
The new Clause does not go quite so far. It says that the contract of employment, a collective contract between the employer and the employee, shall give that employer the right to sue the employee unless the parties expressly exclude that, and they can exclude it if they wish. Those of us who deal with these matters in the courts from time to time cannot accept the argument of the Minister that an employer will not sue an employee because he will thereby create bad relations. If an employer were sued in the execution of this new Clause, it would merely be a test case. The union would appear for the employee, the employers would no doubt be represented by their association, and they would test whether there had been a breach of the contract.
We have at the moment a preposterous situation with regard to the agreement with the electricity boards. There is a


divergence of view about whether if a man is absent for three days under Clause 64 of that agreement he is obliged to provide a certificate in relation to his illness. He does not do so in practice. I take the view that if he does not establish his illness he is guilty of a breach of the agreement.
It might be very useful to have a test case to establish what really is the meaning of the terms of Clause 64 of that agreement. If a person were absent and did not provide a proper certificate to say that he had been ill, and his employers brought a test case to get a decision on the terms of that Clause, they would be able to sue for a breach of the agreement. Similarly, they would be able to use the new Clause for a test case.
I hope that the Government will take very much more seriously the overwhelming feeling in the country, including within the trade unions and among employers, that there is a need to go a great deal further than we have in the past. The question of honouring agreements is uppermost in the minds of many people, and there is deep-seated anxiety that a great many people on both sides of industry are not really honouring their obligations as employers and employees.
I am sure that the Minister will agree that we on this side of the House have shown great restraint. I would have liked to see this Bill widened immeasureably to meet the real feelings in the country today, but I accept it because it is admirable in many respects. I hope that before the General Election the Government will bring forward a Bill to further improve the position and thereby better our trade and industrial relations.

Mr. Stan Awbery: From the tone of his speech I gather that the hon. Gentleman wants to go back to the pre-Taff Vale decision and make the trade unions responsible for the actions of individual members. According to the new Clause, if a man violates his agreement action will be taken against him. If 1,000 or 2,000 men on the factory floor violate their agreements, will action be taken against them, too?

Question put and negatived.

Clause 1.—(THE RIGHTS OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE TO A MINIMUM PERIOD OF NOTICE.)

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out "two years" and to insert "twenty-six weeks".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): I think that it will be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the next two Amendments in line 8, the Amendment in line 10, the two Amendments in line 14, the two Amendments in line 18, the two Amendments in line 22, the Amendment in Clause 2, page 2, line 13, and the second Amendment in Clause 2, page 2, line 19.

Mr. Whitelaw: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I think that all these Amendments hang closely together.
The effect of the Amendments is to alter Clause 1 so that both employer and employee will be obliged to give at least one week's notice of termination after the employee has been continuously employed for 26 weeks. The employee's right to have at least two weeks' notice after two years, and four weeks' notice after five years, remains unaltered.
The Bill as it stands gives the employee a right to a minimum of two weeks' notice after two years, but it does not give him any right to notice until two years have been completed. In Committee, we had a detailed discussion on whether an employee should be entitled to a week's notice after a period substantially shorter than two years. During the course of the discussion it was argued by hon. Members on both sides that many employees in certain industries with a fairly high labour turnover, for example, shipbuilding, ship repairing, and construction, would not benefit from the right to notice in the Bill because they would not have the necessary record of continuous employment.
Moreover, it is these very employees who for the most part form the minority who do not have even a right to a week's notice. This point was also stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), and other hon. Members, on Second Reading. I think that it constitutes a powerful argument for introducing into the Bill a


right to a week's notice after a reasonable qualifying period, and in these Amendments we have accepted that argument.
At the conclusion of the discussion on this point my right horn. Friend gave an undertaking to consider carefully what had arisen in the debate, and he also said that he wanted to find out the views of the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress. The views of the B.E.C. and the T.U.C. differ. The B.E.C. thinks that the question of the right to notice after a shorter period than two years should be left to voluntary negotiation.
If, however, there were to be a statutory right to a week's notice after a shorter period than two years, the qualifying period should not, in the Confederation's view, be less than one year. The T.U.C. has indicated that it thinks the qualifying period should be much nearer to one month. The House will see that the proposal in these Amendments for a qualifying period of 26 weeks' continuous employment falls roughly midway between those opposing views.
I do not suggest that for that reason alone it is necessarily right, but I think that it is worth pointing out as a strong argument in its favour a recent development in the building industry. A right to a week's notice after six months' employment has been agreed in principle by the industry's National Joint Council. We all welcome this progress, and I note that the right to a week's notice appears at the same point as is proposed in these Amendments.

Mr. John Diamond: The hon. Gentleman has shown himself to be courteous and honest throughout our proceedings. Would not he immediately recognise that the building industry is the one industry which is singled out as being the most difficult for giving long periods of notice because of the essential conditions attaching to it, and that that is why it has been one of the very few industries, if not the only one, in which up to this point in time it has been possible to sack a man at an hour's notice?

Mr. Whitelaw: I would not be so definite, but I accept that the building

industry is one of the difficult ones. Far from detracting from my argument, I think that what the hon. Gentleman said adds great strength to it, because I remind him that what we are doing is laying down a statutory minimum. Of course, we hope that people will do better voluntarily, but when we are laying down a statutory limit we must have regard not to one aspect but to the whole field of employment, as has been said very often. Therefore, I feel that the point raised by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) has added weight to my argument, and I am grateful for the help that he has given me in raising it.
The Bill confers a statutory right to notice where the employee can be regarded as having earned it by a qualifying period of service. I would say that six months was about the shortest period in which an employee could be thought to earn a statutory right of this kind. I emphasise again, as I remarked to the hon. Member for Gloucester, that I am speaking only of the statutory right, and the last thing that I would want to do would be in any way to discourage the granting of a week's notice for less than six months' employment, where it is appropriate, under voluntary arrangements. Indeed, I believe that one helpful outcome of the Bill will be that by laying down a statutory limit better arrangements by voluntary agreement will be encouraged.
In laying down a statutory limit we must be careful not to go too low. I believe that it would be difficult to justify going below a period of 26 weeks. In view of what I have said, I cannot invite the House to accept the Opposition Amendments, which would provide a right to a week's notice after one month's employment.
I am a little surprised that the Opposition should have put forward these Amendments. In Committee I thought that it had been clearly shown that if we reduced the period to one month we would run into great difficulties in respect of the casual and temporary workers. I emphasise that I do not base the decision to make the qualifying period one of six months on the need to exclude these workers, but if we imposed a qualifying period of only one month we would run into some very


severe difficulties in this matter. These difficulties would occur in agriculture, building, civil engineering, and many other employments. In my view, it would be unreasonable to provide for a week's notice to be given to someone who had been taken on for five or six weeks for the purpose of a little fruit picking.
I agree that in their Amendments hon. Members opposite are consistent, since they provide that the employee should also be bound to give a week's notice after a month's employment. I suggest that many employees not only do not expect to receive a week's notice, but certainly do not wish to give a week's notice, either. We must beware that in our anxiety to give the employee rights we do not saddle him with obligations which he does not want. I suspect that that would be one of the dangers of reducing the period to one month, as suggested by hon. Members opposite.
I think that hon. Members opposite will agree that, following the discussions in Committee, the Government have accepted the general principles of the arguments put forward, and in those circumstances I hope that the House will agree that we should give employees the statutory right to a week's notice, and that for the reasons I have given that right should accrue after 26 weeks' employment.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: I welcome the Government Amendments, as far as they go, but I want to speak in favour of the Opposition Amendments, which express the views of my hon. Friends and myself that the Bill should be altered to a much greater extent, and should provide for a week's notice after one month's work. In my view, one of the worst features of the Bill as originally drafted was that it did nothing whatever for those people whose employment was least secure. It was ostensibly designed to provide extra security for people at work, but it failed to deal with those whose need was greatest.
As originally drafted it was rather a mess. In this respect and in others it has had to be considerably amended, in Committee and now on Report. The fact that there was originally nothing in the Bill to improve the position of those with less than two years' service was

attacked by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by both sides of industry in their submissions after the publication of the Bill. This was a symptom of the fact that the Bill was produced very quickly, without the normal consultation that one would expect to have taken place with people on both sides of industry.
The object of the Opposition in seeking to provide for notice after one month's employment is to try to get the matter right. We want to bring about a situation in which hardly anyone working in this country can be dismissed at a few hours' notice. We believe that there is something basically wrong about a situation in which a man can be turned out of his job and deprived of his living without the necessary civilised opportunity to look round for another job. If we could do so, we would like to legislate in such a way that every employee, in all circumstances, was entitled to one week's notice, but we have had to recognise, as a matter of practice, that some kind of time limit must be introduced.
There are some kinds of employment in respect of which a week's notice could not be provided. There are people—casual workers in the extreme sense—who do a day's work here, or a few hours' work there, perhaps in casual gardening, or, in the case of a woman, casual domestic work. It would be ridiculous in such cases to think in terms of a week's notice. Furthermore, in other forms of employment there must be some kind of period during which the employer can judge whether a worker is likely to be satisfactory, and the worker can judge whether the employment is satisfactory to him. Clearly, if either party is dissatisfied within the first few days the other party should be able to bring the employment to a close without a week's notice.
Having considered many alternatives, we have come to the conclusion that a period of four weeks' employment is about right for a week's notice. It would cut out the most casual forms of labour and would also provide a period in which both worker and employer could decide whether the employment was a reasonable proposition. After that period, we feel that a week's notice should be obligatory. We do not run


away from the argument that it should be obligatory both ways, and that the employer is also entitled to a week's notice from the worker. A week is not an onerous period either way, and it should be an obligation on the parties concerned.
The period of four weeks is contained in the national agreement in the engineering industry. I do not suggest that the practices of that industry can be followed in every other industry, but it is a very large industry—in fact, it is a conglomeration of industries—and this arrangement has been found to work satisfactorily there, in practice. Under the agreement, those who have worked for four weeks are entitled to one week's notice, and themselves have to give one week's notice if they wish to leave their employment.
If hon. Members opposite consider that four weeks is too long, the onus of proof is on them. The Parliamentary Secretary said that he thought that a man ought to work for six months in order to earn the right to a week's notice. I believe that he was putting the argument the wrong way round. Surely it is a basic human right to have notice, and a week is not very long in which to look for other work. It may be quite inadequate in some circumstances, especially in the conditions that now exist in some parts of the country, with heavy local unemployment. The onus is upon hon. Members opposite to prove that the period we suggest is wrong.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the building industry. We are glad that a new situation has arisen in that industry, because it has been notorious for its quick dismissals—certainly, by some firms in some parts of the country. This has been a bad thing. But the period of six months in the building industry is still probably not quite enough, in view of the conditions which exist in that industry. I have been in touch with some of my trade union friends in the industry and they suggest that the pattern that exists in its works like this: for a great number of projects the period of construction tends to be about two years, depending upon the size of the project and on the weather.
A period of two years is a common period for a major building project to last, and within that period of two years

there are certain phases of work. There is the excavation phase, and all the other phases that follow. These phases last for some months and it is the tendency for people to be laid off at the end of a phase. From the sort of timing which we are here considering, I should have thought that six months would be an advantage on some occasions, and on others it would not. Some work would last for six months and some would not. Our Amendment would be helpful to the building industry for which there ought to be some such period as one month, although it would not relate only to that industry.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred to those who work in agriculture, and the fruit and hop pickers about which we heard so much during the Committee stage discussions. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman did not quote the example which the Minister gave to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman said that this period would be unreasonable in relation to temporary work at Christmas. He suggested that an employer would not know when Christmas Day was coming and how to give seven days' notice, because he would not know when the employment was likely to come to an end. I gather that this argument has been dropped and I am glad of it.
There is, of course, a case in relation to agriculture, and we must admit that. Because of weather conditions and other factors, a farmer may not know exactly when a particular job of work is likely to end, and if he was required to give seven days' notice it might mean that he would be obligated to employ a man for a day or two longer than he desired to employ him. I think that that must be admitted, and that we must say it is not sufficient reason for resisting our Amendment.
Those who go to work for periods of more than four weeks on a farm, as those who work elsewhere, are entitled to at least a week's notice so that they will know when their employment is to be terminated, and have some chance to make other arrangements. It is not good enough for people to be told an hour or two before that their employment is about to come to an end. We ought to do better than we are doing.
For procedural reasons, it will not be possible for us to vote for the Amendment to leave out "two years" and to insert "one month", because, the first Amendment having been accepted, that one would fall. That is a pity because, if it is not accepted, as it ought to be, we would have liked to vote on it. I hope that the debate will be conducted with that in mind. We invite support from hon. Members opposite. We hope that some of them will join with us in urging that the Government, having gone so far, ought to go further. No convincing case has been made out for the Parliamentary Secretary to take the half-measure that he is proposing to the House.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I welcome the series of Amendments put down by my right hon. Friend and I should like to thank him for having listened to the views and the arguments advanced during our Committee stage discussions and taken such notice of them. In my opinion, he has found the right answer.
I should like to thank my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend—we are all sorry that the Minister is not present today—for the very accommodating way in which the whole of the Committee stage discussions were conducted. I think that the period of 26 weeks is the right answer and that my hon. Friend is right to reject the period of one month suggested by hon. Members opposite. I am certain that the acceptance of the Amendment to this effect, which the hon. Member for East Ham North (Mr. Prentice) wishes to press upon the House, would have some serious results. I say this not on behalf of the employers, whether in the migrant trades or in farming enterprises, but on behalf of the employees.
I believe that a serious reason, among the many good reasons given by my hon. Friend, why this Amendment should not be accepted is its acceptance would prevent people employed in these occupations from moving rapidly from one employment to another when the old employment terminated. The arguments adduced during the Committee stage were very strong. Whether in shipbuilding, civil engineering, building, or the gathering of crops, the first person to appear on

the scene usually gets the job. It would be unfair to say that someone who had worked for less than four weeks could get away from one area in order to go to another for a new job quicker than someone who had worked for a longer period than four weeks, and had, therefore, to delay for a week before going.
I strongly support the Government Amendment, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. Diamond: The speech of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has convinced me, even more than the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, that the Amendment which all hon. Members on this side of the House—and I hope some hon. Members opposite—wish to support is the right answer in the national interest and in support of the Government's present propaganda.
There is only one assumption on which we all ought to agree. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) so wisely put it, every employee has the right to be treated like a human being and not to be cast aside unnecessarily without adequate notice. If he is treated as a human being, he will be given reasonable notice of the termination of his employment wherever the circumstances permit. So often people differ because of their basic assumptions.
The Parliamentary Secretary said, the second Report of the N.E.D.C. stated, and the Minister has stated that one of the major ways to avoid redundancy is to plan labour requirements ahead. We are sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not with us. We all wish him an early and rapid recovery. The same thing that has happened to him happened to a more distinguished person than most back in classical times.
On page 10 of the second Report of the N.E.D.C. it is stated:
To some extent unnecessary redundancy can be avoided by the forward planning of labour requirements.
The Minister of Labour has referred to the necessity for doing this. It is a vital necessity because far too many employers, out of long practice, accept the idea that labour, like stock, is a disposable quantity. We put it on the shelf when not needed, and if it is


needed, we use it. But labour and stock are two entirely different things. One is men and the other materials, and we do not treat them alike. It should be the desire of the Government to inculcate into employers the need to regard labour as human beings and to plan their requirements ahead. The arguments of the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, and what is implicit in the Government Amendment, is a libel on most employers. No efficient employer is so haphazard with his labour planning as to be unable to say, until an employee has been with him for six months, whether that employee is to be dispensed with at an hour's notice or a week's notice. To say the contrary is to libel the average employer. It reveals a confusion of thought on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary.
If we wish to avoid redundancy and have formal planning, and if we wish to have efficient labour planning, surely the only argument is, at what point of time has the employer to satisfy himself that an employee is acceptable? And, vice versa, at what point of time has the employee to satisfy himself that the job he has taken on—as a result of answering a newspaper advertisement, or from advice given at the employment exchange, or because of a notice on a door, something external—is a desirable job and one in which he would like to remain? Surely one week is sufficient for that.
I apologise. I meant to say "one month". Surely one month working in a job is sufficient for the employer to know the employee and the employee to know the employer. Four weeks of long working and overtime working, and conversations with his friends, are sufficient for the employee to know the employer, and surely they are sufficient for the employer.
5.0 p.m.
The question which the Parliamentary Secretary posed is, with the greatest deference, misconceived. He asked what would happen about the person who is engaged to do some fruit picking which lasts five or six weeks. May I tell him what would happen? He seems to have some difficulty about the question. If

he wants to dispose of a man who has been engaged for five weeks on a week's notice, then he will give him notice after four weeks. May I help him further? If he wants to dispose of a man who has been engaged for six weeks fruit picking on a week's notice, he will give him notice after five weeks. Six minus one equals five. This is on the same level as the argument about not knowing when Christmas would be. We had to offer him a calendar. Thank heavens that argument has been dropped.
It is simply not the case that the average efficient employer needs to keep an employee for six months before he knows what will happen about continuing the employment of that man. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North said, the Government's reliance on the argument about the casual worker is misplaced. If an employer takes on a casual employee for a day's work, which by definition is less than a month, or for an hour's work, which by definition is less than a month, then the fact that the employer is taking on a casual employee for less than one month means that this issue does not arise. Once an employer takes on a man and keeps him for more than a month, why not give him adequate notice?
The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury advanced an interesting argument about the man getting a job in shipbuilding. He asked: why should a man who has been employed for more than four weeks suffer a disadvantage by comparison with his fellow man who has been employed for less than four weeks by not being able to leave immediately, at an hour's notice, and to take a new job which is available? The answer is this: what is the difference between that distinction and the distinction between a man who has been employed for five months and three weeks and a man who has been employed for six months and one week? Wherever we draw a line, some people will fall on the other side of it. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury is apparently not showing his usual alacrity in understanding the argument. May I repeat it? Under the Clause which he supports, a man who has been employed in the shipbuilding industry for five months and three weeks can leave at one hour's notice.

Mr. Ridley: The point is that in the itinerant trades, where this quick movement arises from job to job, we avoid all these men if we take a period of six months, but we do not avoid them if we take one month.

Mr. Diamond: I do not understand the argument about itinerant trades. This is not an argument about itinerant trades. This is an argument about when a man has passed his period of probation and whether one month is sufficient for that purpose. An employee having passed his period of probation, it is only a question whether the employer can look ahead for one week. Any suggestion that he cannot look ahead for one week must be proved. The onus of proof is on that side. Once we accept the basic assumption that it is right to treat a human being who is employed with the dignity which allows him one week's notice—

Mr. A. P. Costain: The hon. Member is a little too casual about casual work when he refers to a period of five months and three weeks. How would he deal with casual labour taken on for snow clearing? The employer does not know a week ahead how long the snow will last. It could last for four weeks.

Mr. Diamond: It is odd for the hon. Member to suggest that the local authority does not know whether it will need its employees for more than four weeks. I will deal with his question immediately.
What is the difference between a local authority which does not know, because of the vagaries of the climate whether the snow which has been there for three-and-a-half weeks will continue for four-and-a-half or five weeks and the local authority or the building contractor who has employed a man for twenty years and does not know whether climatic vagaries will require him to be there for one week, three weeks or more to finish digging a ditch or clearing some snow? The climatic vagaries exist in both cases. The only difference is the attitude of mind of the employer to the employee.
I admit, I say that we should all admit, and every employer admits and should accept that there are circumstances arising out of the weather under which either the employer makes less profit or the em-

ployee gets the sack without notice. Which do hon. Members opposite want? It is a plain fact of profit and loss which any accountant can calculate. If the weather goes against him, the employer will either sack his men without notice or make less profit by having to pay them when they are not working because of the weather.
The Parliamentary Secretary knows that one of the reasons why this agreement was reached with the building trades was that there are difficulties with the weather in that trade which are specially catered for in terms of minimum pay no matter what the weather is. Because the notice, even under a six months' period, has to be given on a Friday, for building trade purposes this has almost the same effect as giving a week's notice, because Friday is the day on which people move from one job to another. There is, therefore, no difference between a man who has been employed for five weeks and a man who has been employed for five years or fifty years. The only question is, what is the attitude of the employer to be?
I very much hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reconsider what he said, especially having regard to our procedural difficulties. I hope that he will accept, first, that we want to treat men reasonably by giving them a week's notice as soon as we can and, secondly, that every employer can look one week ahead except in respect of such vagaries of the climate as are a fair risk which he takes into account in his costing, whether the employee has been employed there for a short time or a long time. Humane considerations therefore require us to coincide this provision with a later provision in the Bill and to say that four weeks is the right period.

Mr. David Renton: I also wish to thank my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for the careful and sympathetic thought which he and the Minister have given to this series of Amendments. In my opinion the Government have got this matter about right, although it is a matter of judgment.
Both sides of the House have made valuable contributions to the thought on this matter. Possibly the fears expressed by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) about


people who are engaged for particular pieces of work or short periods of labour are to a great extent met if the following is the proper interpretation of the Bill. I put the interpretation of the Bill as I see it to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary in the hope that he may be able to confirm that the position is as I believe it is.
Clause 1 applies only to continuous employment. Therefore, it is important for us to understand what continuous employment is. The First Schedule says that there are certain things which cannot be continuous employment. Apart from that, it seems that employment is not continuous if it is for an agreed period limited by the employer and employee by voluntary agreement, nor if it is for a particular piece of work as, for example, the completion of a ship or a building, work in picking the hops of a particular hopyard or other piece of farming work. None of those things is continuous employment.
Employment is continuous only if it is for an indefinite period and is not limited to the completion of a particular piece of work. If that is the position, the fears expressed in the two interesting speeches we have heard from hon. Members opposite are completely met. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will be able to confirm that the interpretation I have given is the correct one. If it is not, and if the matter needs clearer definition, I ask him to consider the point further with a view to that being provided when the Bill reaches another place.

Sir Spencer Summers: I am very glad that the Minister has responded to the pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House to bring down the period from two years. Two of my hon. Friends have said that the Government have got this about right. I am not quite sure that I would not have liked the period to have been a bit shorter. That is partly because I believe it could have been shorter and still excluded the casual worker, and partly because if it were thirteen weeks it would have enabled the same date to be chosen for the presentation of the written terms of contract to the employee.
I imagine that one of the factors which the Government have had to take into account is uniformity of treatment for all

occupations. We have learned that the building industry, after considerable discussion, has settled on the period of six months. I shall not say that that industry ought to have done something different, because I do not know enough about the industry to know whether the obligations in this Bill could have been introduced at a lesser period than six weeks. Although I should like the period to be shorter, I accept the arguments based on uniformity for sticking to twenty-six weeks.
Mention has been made of the Amendment, which suggests four weeks. I want to put a point apropos of such a relatively short period which has been touched on, but which has not been sufficiently emphasised. A number of employers, farmers and others, would not wish to pay a man who worked for them five or six weeks more than the actual work the man normally did. It is not a question of whether the employer takes 4, 13 or 26 weeks to discover whether the man should be regularly employed, or whether the man wishes to be regularly employed in that job. That is a very small factor to be borne in mind in settling the period. Since such people do not wish to be obliged to pay for time beyond the actual hours worked, they will seek by every means at their disposal to avoid doing so in respect of the person who will work for them only for a short time.
If the Amendment proposing four weeks were introduced, I am confident that in many instances the effect would be that a week's notice would be given regularly at the third week, or, if the employment were longer, at the fourth or fifth week. The advantage foreseen in the Amendment would be nullified by that action of the employer. It could be given in the middle of a week, and when it was found that work had to go on beyond the seven days hence for the sake of getting the job done, no doubt the employee would willingly comply with the retracting of the notice.
Such a step would be thoroughly artificial and undesirable. It would be a feature whose introduction into industrial relations would be very much regretted. It that risk is real, as I believe it is, I should deplore reducing the period to as low as four weeks. We ought not to attempt to obtain from non-regular


workers a week's notice which probably they do not want to give and do not expect to be given to them. This is a two-way traffic. I hope the time may come when industries which are particularly affected by the weather will feel able to go below twenty-six weeks. Until such time arrives, I do not find fault with the answer which the Government have provided.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: It is intolerable in this day and age that any honest man prepared to work to the best of his ability in any industry should be only an hour, or perhaps a week, away from getting the sack. We all agreed on that in Committee, but, having agreed on it, we have to decide the best minimum period. On the whole, I agree with most of my colleagues that about six months is right and not just one month.
This gives a greater scope for many semi-freelance workers. There are far more of them than we realised when we discussed this matter in Committee. We heard about agricultural and building workers and fruit pickers, but there are lorry drivers who do certain jobs on particular sites and freelance chauffeur drivers employed by particular firms. All these would feel hampered if they had to give a week's notice. They are prepared to accept the definition of a general six months' notice.
It is well established in many professions and businesses that people have a month's trial. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) said that after a week one got to know an employer or an employee, but even after a month one is not quite certain that a person will settle down or suit that particular employer.

Mr. Diamond: I used the term "one week", but I tried to withdraw and correct it and to make clear that I meant a month. I agree with the hon. Member about a month's trial.

Mr. Smith: Even so, if in such circumstances we imposed a month instead of six months that would affect a number of people possibly disadvantageously while far more would be hampered when they are genuine freelance workers. They would rather have the position in which

they did not have to give a week's notice. Many of these jobs last for only about six months. Many of these people are itinerant workers. If the period is six months it will be generally acceptable throughout the whole of industry for employers and employees.

Mr. J. Robertson: I always understood that it was bad to legislate for the exception. It seems that all the arguments, including those made at the Dispatch Box, by hon. Members opposite have been concerned with the exceptional case. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell the House how many work people and how many industries already have the right of seven days' notice after four weeks have been worked. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary would find that there are very few exceptions.
What we are trying to do is to legislate for such workers, as the casual agricultural workers, the people who are engaged in picking hops, or serving in shops at Christmas time. This is the argument which has been trotted out. The most important aspect of what the Parliamentary Secretary said was in relation to the period of time and the reasoning behind this. He said that the right to a week's notice was a reward, or should be looked upon as a reward. We would never accept this. This is completely foreign to trade union thinking. We think that people have the right to receive reasonable notice as soon as possible, not as a reward for being good boys or for something else. The Parliamentary Secretary should think about this again.
I could not understand the Parliamentary Secretary when he said that the Standing Committee was in difficulty on casual workers. I thought that we dealt very adequately with this position in Committee. It seems that the difficulty has been all on the other side. It is rather strange—or is it?—that the difficulties have all been on the other side, because the difficulties we have heard about are in shipbuilding and agriculture. How many people in shipbuilding would not be able to get a week's notice? The number must be very few indeed. Therefore, we are concerned only with agricultural workers. Is it right that a man should have to work for six months before he has the right to a week's notice


merely because hon. Members opposite have an interest in agriculture? This is what is suggested. It is preposterous that a man should have to work six months before he becomes entitled to a week's notice of termination of employment. I do not see any argument which can justify that. I was not impressed by the Parliamentary Secretary's answer.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that Members of Parliament are suspended and get no notice whatsoever after many years' service?

Mr. Robertson: I would accept that, but the working conditions of Members of Parliament should be the subject of a trade union agreement. I am prepared to submit them to such an agreement at any time. Our working conditions are terrible and deplorable. If the hon. Gentleman can devise ways and means of sorting that out, I will gladly help him. Here we are dealing with people working in industry. The Parliamentary Secretary should accept our Amendment.

Mr. William Shepherd: I did not have the advantage of serving on the Standing Committee, one reason being that I was unable to catch the eye of the Chair on Second Reading. Therefore, I have not had the opportunity of listening to the arguments which were deployed, evidently with some vigour, upstairs. I welcome, as my hon. Friends have done, the improvements in the provisions which my right hon. Friend has made, but I must voice some regret that these improvements have not gone even further. I am in the unhappy position of not knowing how far the itinerant worker argument is valid. I must therefore leave it aside in anything I say, because I have no special knowledge of it.
I say this as an employer. I do not believe that the requirement to give a week's notice after a month's employment is unreasonable having regard to the generality of employment. I am not able to pronounce upon how far this is impractical in terms of the itinerant worker. The arguments which are adduced against providing notice are without any solid foundation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) said that if employees had to give a week's notice

they would not be able to move around rapidly and get another job. The point is that if everybody is in this situation it simply does not arise. It means that two things happen. First, if the requirement to give notice is laid upon employers, they are more careful in the selection of those they take on, which is a very good quality to induce in employers. Secondly, they plan their activities more carefully than they otherwise might do. The extent to which we have accepted until this date the right of an employer to dismiss a man at a minute's notice, despite the social consequences of that act, is deplorable. It is not consistent with a civilised and organised society.
I realise that my right hon. Friend has gone perhaps as far as he can go in all the difficult circumstances, because employers' associations are like trade unions; they go at the pace of the slowest. It only requires one man to rise at a meeting of employers and say, "This is outrageous. It will ruin all of us", for everybody else to follow suit just as at meetings of trade unions it happens in reverse.
Parliament is in the position that it must take advice from outside. This advice would impose a standard well below that which the majority of intelligent people would be prepared to accept. I hope that my right hon. Friend would consider this matter further between now and some other stage of the Bill. He may be able to decide that the itinerant labour argument has less validity than we imagine. If it has, I should like to see a shorter period written into the Bill.

Mr. Bence: I had not intended to speak, but I want to pay a compliment which is richly deserved to the contribution just made by the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd). I was a member of the Standing Committee. I do not think I heard the point about selection of labour made in the Standing Committee. I have certainly never heard it put so well as the hon. Member put it. When only an hour's notice applies, executives in industrial plants tend to take on labour which they know may not be suitable, but they know that they can get rid of them within an hour. People working in industry are often astonished to see the type of men taken on by the personnel department. Men working alongside such men know that


they will not last a day or a week, as the case may be. I have experienced this many times. It is deplorable that we permit a situation to exist in which men work in a department for a week or ten days, although their fellow workers know that they will not last because they are not up to the job. Because they can be got rid of at a hour's notice, there is a tendency to take on unsuitable labour.
I followed the remarks of the hon. Member for Cheadle with great interest. I agree with him entirely that we are passing legislation, the form of which is not in advance of many of the best employers. I worked for many years in an industry that gave a lead in working conditions and wages, not only in this country, but in the whole world. It probably was the spearhead of advancing working conditions in the light engineering industry. This is a disadvantage to us when we are discussing a Measure which is behind the standard adopted by the best employers.
We have come down now to twenty-six weeks. I am glad that the hon. Member for Cheadle supports our request for a month. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was right in saying that most executives in industrial plants can accurately assess how long they require labour. I should think that this applies to farmers, especially large farmers. I should imagine that it applies to civil engineering. Many of them are in a position to assess accurately how long they will require gangs of labour, or even one person. Very few good employers and good managers are unable in these days to assess the length of time for which they will require labour.
I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) was right on the ball when he said that if we were going to examine legislation as it affects every variation in the type of labour employed we should never get legislation passed at all. We really cannot pass legislation for every specialised field. We have to accept a general minimum. I should have thought that a month was adequate. From my own experience I know that even before the war many employers in the light engineering industry always gave their skilled employees a week's notice and a chance

to find another job. That was done between the wars, in the bad old days.
I believe that in 1963 we should be able to pass legislation which was in keeping not with the slowest forces in the industrial complex but with those forces which are running at the fastest speed, and I am sorry that we are not up to their standards.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Ray Gunter: The Parliamentary Secretary, and, indeed, his right hon. Friend the Minister, whose absence we so much regret today, journeyed to Damascus a few times during the Committee stage and the light has descended upon them. I am rather hoping that after the short debate which we have now had and in view of the fact that the most responsible elements in the House cast some doubt on whether 26 weeks is the right period, the Parliamentary Secretary will have another look at the problem. I think that there will be a general consensus of opinion, even, among those who strongly advocated 26 weeks upstairs in Committee, that it is not a hard and rigid matter. There is always an element of doubt and balance about it.
Our Amendment proposes one month, and we should like to have the period set at one month. We think that it is a reasonable proposition, but in the light of the debate today and the demands that have come from both sides of the House, and from the best of motives, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at the matter and to consider whether 26 weeks is not too extended a period and that he might at a further stage of the Bill give us something better.

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) is, as always, most persuasive. I should like to start by thanking all hon. Members who have spoken for the welcome which they have given to what the hon. Member for Southwark described as "seeing the light". Of course, some hon. Members do not think that we have seen enough light, but at least it is accepted on both sides that we have seen some light, and I am grateful for the welcome that has been given to that.
I should like to add that we all start—and I assure the hon. Member for


Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) of this—from the basic agreement that we are trying to ensure that men are treated as human beings, that they are given proper notice and that they are not put out on the street at a minute's or an hour's notice. When I heard some hon. Members speaking I began to wonder who had introduced the Bill. Surely it was for that specific purpose that my right hon. Friend introduced the Bill—to give longer periods of notice. That, I certainly think we can all agree, is a desirable objective.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), in seeking to argue for a month instead of 26 weeks was uncharacteristically a little vague from time to time. I hope that I have taken down some of his phrases correctly. He said that four weeks was a desirable period because it was followed in the engineering industry, as indeed it is. But, of course, this practice is not, and perhaps could not be, followed everywhere else.
Then the hon. Gentleman came to the building trade and said that for some people it was suitable for the period to be less than six months, but that, of course, there were difficulties for others. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it is this vagueness which produces the real problem about the period of time. I also suggest the same to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd), whose intervention I very much welcome. I know that my hon. Friend is interested in these subjects and I am very glad that we had the benefit of his advice and views today.
I must remind the House that what we are doing is setting down a statutory right. The hon. Member for East Ham, North said that I had referred to "earning a right". With all possible respect, I referred to "earning a statutory right", and I think there is a very considerable difference between the two. However, I accept absolutely what the hon. Gentleman says about a right. I accept too what he says about the desirability of employers, where appropriate, giving the week's notice at a period considerably earlier than six months. I further accept that the great majority of employers do so, and this is very welcome indeed.
I would draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that the Bill has as its purpose the fixing of a minimum,

and that by doing this it will encourage everyone to do much better than they do at present. That, I think, has already been one of the purposes of the Bill and one of its great values. In laying down the statutory minimum, whether we like it or not—I must remind the hon. Member for Paisley of this—we have to have regard to the practice in all fields of employment. That is something from which we simply cannot escape.
The hon. Gentleman said that it was bad law to legislate for exceptions. In the Bill we are laying down a statutory minimum which will affect all fields of employment, and it is really for that reason that we have fixed the period of 26 weeks. Of course, we know that many people do better, and we hope that more and more will do better.

Mr. Prentice: I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary will bear in mind the suggestion made on Second Reading by his hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), who is one of his predecessors in his office, that every worker should be entitled to seven days' notice but that the Minister should take power under the Bill to make regulations about exceptions? If the hon. Gentleman would consider that, it might enable him to meet the point made by hon. Members on both sides. If there is provision to exclude people in special circumstances, surely it should not only be six months because there might be isolated cases where that would not work out very well.

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. Before I come to my conclusion I should like to say that I also noted what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) said. I should like to look at it in HANSARD tomorrow before expressing a final view. So I cannot assure him whether his interpretation is the right one; but I will certainly investigate the matter for him. I would say in passing that I deliberately did not include all of the various categories of temporary and casual workers—and I was twitted by the hon. Member for Gloucester for that—because I thought I gave sufficient examples.
In conclusion, and following what the hon. Member for East Ham, North has said about noting the feelings of every-


one who has spoken in the debate and the welcome that has been given for what we have done, I would say that, as so often in life, when one does something good people want one to do more of it. This is one of the things that we have to accept. I really believe that there are great difficulties in reducing the statutory minimum below 26 weeks. However, I noted what the hon. Member for East Ham, North said, but I think that there are great difficulties in that approach, too. That is why after very careful consideration we fixed the period of 26 weeks.
I note what hon. Members opposite have said, that they would have divided in favour of their Amendment if they were able to do so. The fact that they are not able to do so indicates, of course, that one can consider the debate without having expressed a final view on it in a Division. There may, in fact, be merit in that. However, I must tell the House that we gave very careful consideration to all the points put to us, and, indeed, to most of those which have been made today, in coming to our decision on the 26 weeks. I believe that it is the right decision. I am grateful for the welcome which has been given, but I note the reservations of hon. Members opposite and will consider their views.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 1, line 8, at end insert:
(a) shall be not less than one week's notice if his period of continuous employment is less than two years, and,

In line 10, after "is", insert "two years or more but".

In line 14, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".

In line 18, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".

In line 22, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Clause 2.—(THE RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEE IN PERIOD OF NOTICE.)

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 2, line 13, to leave out from the first "for" to the end of line 17 and to insert:
twenty-six weeks or more, the provisions of Schedule (Rights of employee in period of

notice) to this Act shall have effect as respects the liability of the employer for the period of notice required by section 1(1) of this Act".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that it would be convenient to the Committee to discuss at the same time the following Amendments: In page 2, line 19, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".
In line 20, leave out from "employment" to end of line 25 and insert:
the provisions of Schedule (Rights of employee in period of notice) to this Act shall have effect as respects the liability of the employer for the period of notice required by section 1(2) of this Act".
In line 26, leave out from "apply" to end of line 31 and insert:
in relation to a notice given by the employer or the employee if the notice to be given by the employer to terminate the contract must be at least one week more than the notice required by section 1(1) of this Act".
In line 32, leave out subsection (4).
In line 40, leave out subsection (6).
In page 3, line 3, leave out "Schedule 2" and insert:
Schedule (Rights of employee in period of notice)".
The new Schedule—"Rights of Employee in Period of Notice".
In page 11, line 1, leave out Schedule 2.

Mr. Whitelaw: Would it also be convenient to discuss the Amendments to the new Schedule in the names of hon. Members opposite, or would you rather that we discussed those later, Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that it would be preferable to discuss the Amendments to the new Schedule with the new Schedule, rather than now.

Mr. Whitelaw: The new Schedule is, in fact, among the list of Amendments you called, Sir William, and which you suggested should be discussed with the Amendment I moved.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: In which case, if that is convenient to the Committee, then I think that it would be convenient to do so; and the Amendments to the new Schedule which may also be discussed are the following: In line 7, after first "hours", insert:
together with an estimated average of hours of overtime".


In line 9, at end insert:
and references to the employee being ready and willing to work shall be read as subject to the right of an employee to be given reasonable time in which to seek alternative employment".
In line 79, leave out paragraph 5.

Mr. Whitelaw: Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
These Amendments deal with the right to minimum pay during notice given by the Bill. It has been generally agreed throughout our discussions that we must make the right to minimum pay sufficient to prevent the employee from having to face a serious drop in pay when he is having to change jobs. All along it has been easy enough to state these principles, on which there is general agreement, but it has been a good deal more difficult to find a satisfactory means of putting them into effect.
The present minimum pay provisions give the employee entitled to notice under the Bill the right to be paid during notice at a rate no lower than his average rate of earnings over the past 26 weeks. These provisions have come in for a good deal of criticism by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. It has been pointed out that in some circumstances they could give an employee the right to considerably higher pay during notice than he could otherwise possibly cam. This will happen if he has worked a good deal of overtime in the past six months and if the firm has gone on to short-time working during the notice period. Further, it has been pointed out that the record keeping and calculations necessary to work out the entitlement on the basis of a 26-week average are far from negligible, to put it mildly.
We made it clear on Second Reading that we were ready to consider alternatives, provided the essential safeguards were maintained. My right hon. Friend explained what he meant by "essentials" when he said:
What is clearly essential is that the Bill should ensure that where the contract of employment fixes a wage for a normal week's work, the pay during notice should not fall below this; but when the contract does not fix such a wage there should … be a guarantee related to previous earnings."—[Official Report, 14th February, 1963; Vol. 671, c. 1510.]

In Committee we had a valuable discussion of this extremely complex question. We gave an undertaking then to consider all the suggestions put forward. We have now done that and, as a result of our consideration, we have been led to table the Amendments which we are now discussing.
5.45 p.m.
The new formula we have put forward now owes a great deal to an Amendment tabled in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers). My right hon. Friend and I are extremely grateful to him for his suggestion, which has enabled us to devise rules which, I venture to hope, may be accepted by all hon. Members as making a real improvement on those at present in the Bill. I must take some time to explain carefully, and I hope clearly, the new rules and how they will work.
A distinction is made between employees who have normal working hours under their contracts and those who do not. Of course, the very great majority of employees have normal working hours. There are comparatively few categories of employees, such as commercial travellers, who do not. A man who has normal working hours and who works at least those hours during notice will be paid his earnings under his contract. No provision is necessary in the Bill to protect him, for he is already safeguarded by his contract. It is worth pointing out that this will deal with the great majority of cases.
Where safeguards are necessary, however, is if the employee is prevented from working his normal hours during notice, either because the firm is working short time, or because of a temporary lay-off, or because he is sick or because his holidays fall during that period of notice. For any of these circumstances a safeguard is provided by paragraph 2 of the new Schedule. If the employee is paid on a time basis then under paragraph 2(2) he is assured of being paid for the normal working hours not less than what he would have got if he had been working throughout them. If, however, he is on a piece-rate system of pay, then under paragraph 2(3) for each of the normal working hours during which he does not work he is to be paid at a rate no less than his average hourly rate of earnings


over the last four weeks before notice was given.
We now come to the employee who does not have normal working hours under his contract. He is given a guarantee under paragraph 3 similar to that in Clause 2(1) of the Bill as it stands now. It is, however, based on an average payment over only 12 weeks. It does not seem necessary to retain averaging over 26 weeks for the purposes of covering what I think will be accepted as the relatively very small proportion of employees to whom paragraph 3 will apply.
These new provisions seem to have considerable advantages. By sticking more closely to the rights in the contract they interfere much less drastically with existing arrangements than the yardstick at present in Clause 2(1). One result is that many of the anomalies to which the present pay provisions are subject are removed and others of them are reduced. Another desirable result is that these provisions are far simpler to work. In the great majority of cases no calculation based on previous earnings is needed. Where a calculation is needed, it is much simpler than the calculation at present in the Bill. The provisions guarantee the employee a reasonable wage during notice, and one that is perfectly in keeping with the principle that I said earlier we regarded as essential.
In one important respect, the employee's safeguards will, in fact be improved. Under the present provisions in the Bill, if any employee has been consistently on short time in the six months before he is given notice—and this, of course, is just the situation that might arise in a declining industry—the minimum pay guaranteed him during notice would fall below that of a normal working week. This will not happen under the new provisions. I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) will welcome this, because in the Standing Committee he moved an Amendment which aimed at remedying the shortcomings in the present Clause 2, to which I have just referred. I have done my best to explain how these new rules work. They are contained in the new Schedule standing in the name of my right hon. Friend.
I should now like to explain briefly how our other Amendments fit in. The Amendments in page 2, line 13, in page 2, line 19, and in page 2, line 20—

Sir S. Summers: Would my hon. Friend say a word apropos the new Schedule as compared with the old one—as to why the old paragraph referring to sickness and injury does not find a place here?

Mr. Whitelaw: It might be better if I were to answer my hon. Friend at the end of this debate.
The three Amendments I have mentioned make the necessary drafting changes in Clause 2(1) and (2), including changes to take account of the alteration to Clause 1 to give a right to one week's notice after 26 weeks' employment.
The Amendment in page 2, line 26 makes a change in Clause 2(3). under which Clause 2 is not to apply if the employee has a right to at least a week's notice beyond the minimum laid down by Clause 1. The Amendment is needed to maintain this principle in the light of the inclusion in Clause 1 of a right to at least one week's notice after 26 weeks.
The Amendment in page 2, line 32, drops subsection (4), which is no longer needed. As this provision has, in any case, been the target for a good deal of criticism, this Amendment will probably be fairly generally welcomed. The Amendment in page 2, line 40, drops subsection (6), which also is no longer necessary. The Amendment in page 3, line 3, effects a minor consequential drafting change in Clause 3. Finally, the Amendment in page 11, line 1, proposes the deletion of the present Schedule 2, which is to be replaced by our new Schedule.
I hope that with those explanations—which, I fear, have taken some time—the House will be willing to make the changes to the minimum pay provisions that we suggest. I have not, at this stage, attempted to deal with the Amendments to the proposed new Schedule that have been tabled by hon. Members opposite. I shall, of course, attempt later to answer the points advanced in support of those Amendments, and also to answer any other points that are raised, such as that put forward just now by


my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers). I hope that at this stage I have, at least, made the clearest statement on a complex question of which I am personally capable.

Mr. J. Robertson: I beg to give notice, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that at the appropriate time I shall want to move our Amendment to the new Schedule—in line 7, after first "hours", insert:
together with an estimated average of hours of overtime".
The Minister has set us a very formidable task in dealing with all these Amendments along with the new Schedule and, initially, I shall confine myself to the preliminary part of that Schedule. I must say that the meaning of this part of the Schedule is rather obscure. First of all, it seems to start from the assumption that the meaning of "normal working hours" is known, but it then goes on to define what they are in terms that leave one in doubt about the possible meaning of the original use of the words "normal working hours".
The fact is that there are cases in which it might be said that there are normal working hours for a certain occupation, but that no overtime is payable for any time worked beyond those hours, whether it be the day, the week, or, indeed, any period at all. I should have thought that the difficulty in defining cases where there are normal working hours would have been in this particular instance, but the Schedule, and this part of it in particular, makes no attempt to give a clear definition of such instances. It confines itself to saying that included in the cases of normal working hours are those in which an overtime premium applies when the worker is employed for more than a stated number of hours. This is very difficult. Hours for which overtime payments are made are not to be considered as normal working hours. I do not know quite what to make of that. I think that our Amendment will be required in order to clear up a number of the difficulties I can see.
In order to clarify the position, perhaps I may be allowed to give some examples. The worker employed in what is normally called the rota shift, or on a Continental week would have a normal week of 37½ hours or 40 hours—or, if it were a Continental week working the six-shift

system, 48 hours. The normal working hours for these systems would include each day of the week, but if the worker's normal hours meant that he was called upon to work during the weekend then, although that was considered a normal working period, he would receive overtime payment for working at the weekend. Although, normally, it is a normal working period, it would not be so considered under the definition in the Bill. I agree that it is possible to think of weekend premiums as being other than overtime payments, but the agreements applied in industry describe these payments as overtime payments, and I therefore think that difficulties of interpretation will arise therefrom. The point is that the extra payments are part of the normal weekly wage and, for the purposes of the Bill, should be considered as such.
In the case of the three-shift rota system, the normal working hours would be determined by the working shift rota. These hours would also fall on Saturdays and Sundays and, whether or not extra pay was due, these would be the normal working hours. With the Continental system, when day shift working or day and night shift working operates, it is quite normal to apply the usual weekend overtime premiums to overtime at the weekend, but the overtime at the weekend is part of the normal working week, even if extra money is paid for it. In the arrangement of the shift, the normal method to accommodate the change-over would, perhaps, call for six days a week to be worked, with overtime applying for one of those days. There would then be a break of two, three, or perhaps four rest days, and in order to find the average normal hours one has to take the average over the whole cycle.
The point is, however, that included in this cycle are days for which overtime payments are made, but they are part of a normal week. Consequently, we wish to see the Amendment made.
6.0 p.m.
It is not unusual to find instances where hours are worked outside what are called the normal hours and these do not carry overtime premium, but time off is given in lieu. Circumstances could arise where a day given in lieu would come out of the period of calculation and would affect the total of


money. Pay might also be made up in another way, with a man working overtime being paid with a day off in lieu. If the overtime payment is not counted, he will be at a disadvantage. Therefore, I do not think that we can accept the definition of normal working hours as given in the Schedule.
I have come across cases where regular hours of work exceed those normally applied in the factory, and where the weekly wage included an overtime allowance but this allowance was not attached to any specific period of work. The hours in this case were the hours actually worked in that week. This happens often, but unless the Amendment is accepted this would mean that a worker who received an extra day off in lieu of overtime might have part of his wage taken away, even though the full wage was considered to be the normal wage in his circumstances.
I could quote many examples of these peculiar systems of payment which have grown up in various sections of industry to suit the circumstances of certain jobs. I will give two more examples in the steel industry in Scotland where there is an agreement for an extended working week, that is a 21 shift week. When this number of shifts has been worked in the furnaces, the maintenance men, again by agreement, have to accept Sunday as a working shift. They have agreed that they will work on Sundays. This becomes part of the normal working week, but if they work on Sunday they are paid overtime.

Mr. Dan Jones: The cycle.

Mr. Robertson: No, not necessarily the cycle. This has to do with continuous working of the furnaces or the mills. Employers ask that maintenance men should be present during days which are not working days. An agreement has been drawn up that these men shall attend on those days and therefore the Sunday is a normal working day.
In the steel industry in Scotland there are premiums for certain days of the years, called "holiday premiums". These are days on which men are not entitled to go on holiday, but if they work, as they always do, they are paid premiums for so doing. These can be called overtime payments. It might be

no stretch of the imagination so to call them and, knowing the steelworks negotiators on the management side, I do not think that it would take them long to come to this point and so describe them. These payments are part of normal remuneration for a maintenance man in the industry. If it came to reckoning payment given to a man under notice these should be considered.
I understand what the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have been trying to do in the new Schedule. Parts of the Schedule are less attractive than the original proposals, where average earnings were suggested as a basis. I accept that what the Minister is attempting to do might be less complicated and less difficult to understand and might create fewer problems. I am all for simplicity in these matters, but not to the extent of reducing the liability of the employer to the normal minimum hourly rate of wages and the normal minimum hours of the working week. I think that these provisions should go a little further than that.
I hope that I have been able to convince the Parliamentary Secretary. This problem is not simple. Even if the hon. Gentleman imagines that this part of the Schedule deals with the majority of cases—and it seems to me that what I am about to say is something of a boomerang—nevertheless, there are instances where there would be an obvious injustice. I believe that the position would be met if the words of the Amendment were accepted. This would mean that when men were regularly employed on overtime, or in circumstances where overtime payments were made for working a normal week, these payments would be taken into consideration in calculating the employer's liability during the period of notice.

Sir S. Summers: Naturally, I am delighted that the Minister has found it possible to include in the new Schedule the principle which was advanced in Committee, namely, that in calculating payments to be made to men under notice—where it was possible to pay them for the work which they were in fact doing—that should be the method of calculation, and that only where that was not possible should a different treatment be allowed.
Generally, I would think that the new Schedule meets the case. It is certainly a great deal more satisfactory than the wording in the original Bill. I tried to follow the detailed comments of the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) on the wording of that part of the Schedule which is headed "Preliminary". It is always difficult to make sure that one understands what a Parliamentary draftsman means by what he writes down, and I am not at all sure that the hon. Member put an interpretation on these words which would stand up to examination. I mention this in the hope that before the Bill becomes law the Minister will make sure that the proper wording is applied in these several cases.
I assume that in dealing with this matter of overtime there are two types of overtime of which account must be taken. There is, for instance, the money which is paid for Sunday work as part of a normal number of hours in which Sunday plays a regular part. These ought to be included in the calculation with which we are dealing. If, however, a fitter, for example, worked five hours more than the normal number of hours that appertained to fitting work this should not fall into the same method of calculation, in my judgment, as the kind of overtime payment which was alluded to as part of continuous working, or as the continental week. The Amendment which is designed to give effect to the first type of calculation might well bring into account the second type of calculation also which should not have a place there. Just because for many months in the year that fitter is able to earn for five or even ten hours a week on top of the forty-two, it does not follow that he should be entitled to a similar number of hours during his period of notice if it happens that he is not working those hours. That is quite a different case.

Mr. J. Robertson: While I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's argument, may I ask him whether he will agree that it would be wrong for an employer to work a man the normal hours during the period of notice if the rest of the factory were working overtime? How would he deal with that situation?

Sir S. Summers: Evidently the hon. Gentleman's views are coloured by his experience. I do not know of an

employer who would single out a man and deprive him of the overtime which he was prepared to grant to others not under notice. This seems to me an utterly extreme case for which it is practically impossible to cater in a Bill of this kind. I think we should content ourselves with trying to make plain what we mean in terms of overtime in this context. If the regular week-in, week-out cycle entails payment for an exceptional number of hours at the weekend, that should be in the calculation, but if the overtime springs from more than normal hours it should not.
These are detailed points which may or may not have been taken into account by the draftsmen, and I think it may be of interest to distinguish between the two types of overtime which, to my mind, are relevant in this context.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: The Parliamentary Secretary will have a considerable number of not easy points to deal with on this proposed new Schedule. I do not intend to deal with the points so far raised, although I fully realise their interest and significance. There is no doubt that this is a complicated Schedule and that it is alive with points of difficulty.
I feel concern at paragraph 5 of the Schedule dealing with notice given before a strike. We have on the Notice Paper an Amendment seeking to delete that paragraph from the Schedule. As I understand it, the effect of the paragraph is—and I shall be only too glad if this is disavowed—that where an employee has been concerned or taken part in a strike at any time, then for all future periods he is without entitlement to the benefit of payment during the period of notice. I should like to know whether that interpretation is correct. I think that the words are capable of carrying that meaning, and it would seem to be a very extraordinary result. After all, this paragraph does not seek to draw any distinction between unofficial strikes and official strikes. It covers all cases of strike action in the course of an industrial dispute.
I think that the matter is sufficiently important for me to read out the paragraph:
No payment shall be due under this Schedule in consequence of a notice to terminate a contract given by an employee


if, on or before the termination of the contract, the employee takes part in a strike of employees of the employer.
As I say, I may be wrong in my interpretation of those words, and if so I should like to be told, but my reading of that paragraph is that if an employee takes part in a strike at any time he thereby becomes disqualified to the entitlement of benefit at any particular rate during the period of notice. I should have thought that would be a consequence of the language.
6.15 p.m.
In our earlier consideration of this aspect of the Bill we have sought to eliminate from it any reference to strikes. We thought it right so to do. The question of time expended upon strikes and loss during strikes becomes relevant in the calculation of the period of continuous employment under the First Schedule. It also becomes relevant in this paragraph to the Schedule which I am now discussing. We took the view that it was undesirable that this Bill should be encumbered at any point by references to strikes relative to entitlement to the benefit of payment during period of notice.
I would be the first to acknowledge that, if that were done, it would involve a lacuna in the Bill. If we have a provision in the law that a worker during the period of notice is to be entitled to payment at a given rate, and that that entitlement is to depend upon the length of employment that he has had with an employer, and if the amount that he is to be paid during the period of notice has any relation to his average remuneration, it will obviously be necessary for somebody somewhere to take account of what is to be the effect of a period of time spent in a strike. But that is no conclusive reason for seeking to incorporate the treatment of this problem in the Bill because that is a matter capable of negotiation.

Sir S. Summers: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman distinguishing between a strike which is in keeping with a man's contract and a strike which is a breach of his contract?

Mr. Irvine: I am referring to all strikes. I am acknowledging that it would be a lacuna if this matter were not dealt with in the Bill, but I am arguing

that it is much better than the attempt to deal with it such as we have here.

Sir William Taylor: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman say what is a lacuna? I have never heard of the word.

Mr. Irvine: It is a gap.
That is the view that we have taken in the course of our consideration of the Bill. Paragraph 5 of this proposed new Schedule runs entirely counter to the view that we have taken. I think this is a matter of very great importance because, unless I am mistaken, it is wholly novel and exceptional to make provision in a Bill, as this Bill seems to provide, that because employees have been on strike their entitlement to benefit—and in this case the right to be paid at a certain rate during the period of notice—should be diminished or extinguished. This is an important matter of principle and there is a great danger attached both to this provision and to the manner in which it has been brought forward.
At a time when hon. Members on both sides of the House may deplore the incidence of unofficial strikes, so-called wildcat strikes, and so on, it is, of course, tempting to take a casual view about an attempt to gnaw away very hard-won rights of trade unionists and workers acquired in the long history of industrial relations. Yet I believe that, unless we are vigilant, this is what may be happening now. I know of no precedent which has the effect that the taking of strike action will, as a consequence, lead to a loss of benefit of this character. Moreover, the loss of compensation during a period of notice may have no kind of logical connection with the issue which arose in the strike.
I believe that this may be the thin end of the wedge of a very undesirable process, and I am not at all sure that this is not the aspect of the Bill which hon. Members opposite most like. Although I have acknowledged what merit there is in the Bill, I think it just possible that the thin end of this wedge is what makes it attractive to more hon. Members opposite than I care to think.

Sir S. Summers: The hon. and learned Gentleman is misleading the House completely on this matter. The comments he is making are relevant only in the case of strikes in breach of contract.


There are no benefits lost if workers strike other than in breach of contract, and, in fairness to those who may read these debates, the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to distinguish between the two.

Mr. Irvine: I am obliged for that intervention because it is important that we should be clear and accurate about it. A strike is defined—there is a reference back to it in the new Schedule—at the end of Schedule 1. I am open to correction, but I do not see a provision in that definition of a strike which confines it to strikes in breach of contract.

Sir S. Summers: It is on or before the termination of the contract. If someone wishes to strike, he terminates his contract and then withdraws his labour.

Mr. Irvine: I am sure that it would not be desirable that the hon. Gentleman and I should get involved in a matter of interpretation, and I think that we should both be grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary if he would clear the matter up. I can only say, without the least desire to give anything other than an absolutely frank view of the matter, that, at best, it is open to doubt.

Mr. Denis Howell: We ought to have the Law Officers here.

Mr. Irvine: I should be very surprised if the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers), upon a study of the language at the end of Schedule I, felt satisfied in his own mind that all strikes were not comprised in that definition.
The view I take, on my interpretation, is that we are here confronted by something novel and exceptional, namely, a provision in a Bill which says that men who have been engaged in a strike, no matter whether official or unofficial, shall therefore be disadvantaged in respect of payments they are entitled to receive during periods of notice even though the termination of their employment has nothing whatever to do with the matters which arose during the strike.
I am anxious about these questions, and I believe them to be matters of very great importance for the House to consider. It is true that they were dealt with in Committee and we divided upon them. It may well be that the circum-

stance that we are free to consider the issue again is a consequence of it being recognised to be very important. But let the House know what it is about. Here it is rather hidden away in a new Schedule. It may be of great significance.

Mr. Prentice: We on this side of the House are grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government for looking at some of the points we raised in Committee. In many ways, the Schedule which we have now is an improvement from our point of view, on those parts of Clause 2 which it replaces. In particular we are glad that subsection (4) of the old Clause 2 has gone, that is, the subsection enabling an employer to set off to some extent severance payments against his obligations under the Bill. We took exception to that and we are glad that our point has been met.
Inevitably, when we are faced, at fairly short notice, with a schedule of this complexity, we are bound to have questions to ask. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) have given the Parliamentary Secretary quite a lot to reply to, and I do not particularly wish to add to his difficulties, but I have two new points to raise and I wish to comment on what my hon. Friends have said.
The first new point arises out of paragraph 2(5) of the new Schedule where it is provided that the payment of holiday pay, among other things, may go towards meeting the employer's liability under the paragraph. This bothers us to some extent. We quite see that, if an employee has a holiday due and takes it as part of the period of notice, he clearly should not be paid twice for that holiday. But there are circucumstances in which a man accumulates an entitlement to a holiday and then, if he ends his work with the employer, gets a payment in lieu of the holiday. In some industrial agreements there is reference to holiday credits; a man acquires certain holiday credits by so many months of work and then, if he leaves the job without taking the holiday, he is entitled to that number of days' pay. Clearly, he should be entitled to that in addition to the payment he is entitled to for the period in which he is working his notice. I hope that the meaning and intention of this


paragraph would entitle him to that holiday pay in addition to his other rights under the Schedule. If not, it should be changed. We should welcome the hon. Gentleman's view about it.
The other fresh point arises on paragraph 4 of the new Schedule which refers to the employer not being liable to payment for any period during which the employee is absent from work with the leave of the employer granted at the request of the employee. In Committee, many of us were concerned that a man who had been given notice should have reasonable time off to go and look for a new job. I do not say that this wording in any way inhibits him from having time, and I am sure that it is not intended to do that. However, we should have been happier if some reference to reasonable time had been made in the wording of the Schedule. There are drafting difficulties here, as we heard in Committee, but it might, I suggest, be useful to repeat the point now and have the Parliamentary Secretary's view about it.
If a man is told that his present job is no longer open to him and he will lose it within a week or two, the most important thing to him—far more important that anything in the Bill—is to be able to get another job. We do not want in any way to inhibit his right to go and seek another job, and we feel that it would be useful if there were a reference to his right to reasonable time off. I think that the Government promised us in Committee to consider this point, but they have not met it and we should like further comment about it. Perhaps it is a matter which could be considered between now and the time when the Bill reaches another place.
We attach very great importance to the points raised by my two hon. Friends. First, I make a brief reference to the question of overtime. I shall not go over the ground covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley with great skill and out of his considerable experience in industry, but it seems to us that, whereas we welcome the more simple wording of the Schedule compared with Clause 2—we are all for simplicity when we can have it—the very simplicity at which the Government have aimed may lead to difficulty in cases where, for instance, a man is doing shifts which cover weekends giving rise to extra payment and the

sort of problems to which my hon. Friend referred.
The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) rightly said that there are two kinds of overtime involved here. It is our view that both kinds of overtime should be taken into account in working out the pay in the period of notice. My hon. Friend rightly concentrated on one kind, the kind of extra payment which a man gets for working perhaps at weekends or other irregular periods. Clearly, we want the wording to cover payment for that type of man.
6.30 p.m.
If a man has been getting regular overtime in the sense of working extra hours over a period of months prior to his notice, we do not see why that should not be reflected in the pay which he gets during the period of notice. In that respect, the Schedule appears to be less favourable to the man than the original wording of Clause 2. We would like to know from the Government whether that was their intention. We have put down an Amendment which we can, if necessary, press to a Division, as we shall be inclined to do unless we get clarification which meets our point.
As to strikes, which are referred to in paragraph 5 of the Schedule, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to meet some of the points made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edge Hill. We do not like any reference to strikes in the Bill. It is the wrong place to introduce any kind of legislation affecting strikes. In a way, the Government have the worst of both worlds. Many of their hon. Friends would like the Bill to include certain definite anti-strike Clauses. Some hon. Members opposite who spoke on the first new Clause today spoke on those lines. The Government, rightly in our view, have not met their hon. Friends on that point. At the same time, they have included certain references which meet neither the views of their hon. Friends nor our view.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Would the hon. Member not agree that it is almost inevitable that the question of strikes had to be raised, since if a strike occurs there is a break in continuity of employment? Since other reasons are listed for the breaking of


continuity of employment, it was necessary to raise the question of strikes and decide what to do about it.

Mr. Prentice: I am not convinced about that. Even if it were so, the wording of the Schedule goes too far.
In Committee we discussed the kind of situation that could be defined as a strike. It could be a walking-off the job for half an hour. It could be a reaction by men to a situation which they find intolerable and which all of us individually would agree was intolerable. There could be a situation in which men are ordered to work in conditions which they believe to be unsafe and against which they protest and will not work until they get certain guarantees. In that kind of situation, looking at its merits, possibly none of us would want in any way to penalise the men or to affect their rights under the Bill.
The difficulty about the wording, as in the case of the First Schedule, to which we object, is that it prejudges all the situations, no matter how they arise or whether the strike is prolonged or short. It is automatically assumed that the men have broken their contract in a way which means they should be deprived of their rights under the Bill. This is far too sweeping and the wrong way to approach these matters. It will not have any effect on the incidence of strikes, because if people are prepared to strike they will not be discouraged by the minor losses which they will sustain under the Bill. In any event, it would be unfair. Therefore, we prefer this part to be taken out. I know that the Government will not meet us on this point, but at least we hope that the Parliamentary Secretary might meet us on the other points made by my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not need to be reminded by the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) that this is a complex provision. Anyone set to reply to the various points which have been put to me in the last quarter of an hour would be only too acutely aware of that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) for his welcome of our proposals. I am glad that we have been able to go some way—I hope, a long way—towards meeting his Amendment.
In reply, first, to the several short points raised by my hon. Friend in an inter-

jection, sickness and injury are dealt with in paragraph 2(1) of the new Schedule for workers with normal working hours. For workers with no normal working hours, the relevant provision is paragraph 3(5). I hope that this will help my hon. Friend.
We had a valuable contribution from the hon. Member for Paisley. We all accept that seeing a Schedule of this complexity at short notice and making so many important points upon it is extremely difficult. I will do my best to reply as far as I can to the points raised by the hon. Member. If I do not successfully answer all of them, we would, naturally, like to read in HANSARD what he has said and to consider carefully before the next stage of the Bill any points of difficulty which he has raised.
I start by dealing with the hon. Member's point about defining normal working hours. There is, of course, no definition, but paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule gives guidance. It provides that wherever there is overtime pay, when the employee works more than a fixed number of hours, that fixed number of hours is to be regarded as the normal working hours. This will settle the question for practically all industrial workers and also for many workers in shops and offices. I emphasise that this provision does not say that if there is no overtime pay, there cannot be normal working hours. It would clearly be wrong to do so, because there are a fair number of employees in offices for whom it is part of their conditions to work beyond their usual hours at times of heavy pressure without expecting extra pay.
The hon. Member made an important point about people who may have extra hours of overtime. The Amendment which the hon. Member and his hon. Friends have tabled would have the effect that under paragraph 1(1) of the Schedule, normal working hours would include not only the fixed hours beyond which there is overtime pay, but also an estimated average of hours of overtime.
There is no doubt that the hon. Member has made a valid point. Some employees, of whom transport workers may be a good example, are liable to earn a considerable amount of extra pay through overtime and night work. An employee in this position would have his earnings reduced if during notice he


worked only his normal working hours, all on the day shift. Another example might occur in a factory which was reducing production and cut out the night shift. A worker under notice who had previously been on the night shift might have to work out his notice on the day shift and his earnings would be reduced in consequence.
I should stress that in what will surely be the normal cases, there will be no reduction of earnings in that way. The hon. Member for Paisley fairly agreed with this. It must be right to assume that in most cases people will continue to do the same amount of work at the same sort of hours during notice as they were doing before notice and that their earnings will not, therefore, suffer.
It must, however, be recognised that the earnings of some employees may fall during notice. It is true also that in some employments, employees depend more on overtime earnings than do employees generally. For them, the guarantee in the new Schedule, I say frankly, is less complete. We must accept it as inevitable that any rules for minimum pay that any of us could devise would work unevenly in some cases. What we must surely consider is whether the Bill will prevent pay during notice from falling below a reasonable level. The guarantee which we propose will prevent pay from falling below the contractual rate for a normal week's work. I regard this as a reasonable minimum. It is considerably higher than the level set by the great majority of guaranteed wage agreements.
Having said that, having accepted that there is a real difficulty here, and having also said that we will certainly consider if we can meet in any way the problem which the hon. Gentleman has put forward, I must, I think, point out that there is great difficulty in the first Amendment put down to the new Schedule. It would bring that same procedure into play in those cases, on the one hand where work at the enhanced rates had become a regular, accepted feature of the job, and on the other hand, those where it was exceptional and perhaps optional, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury pointed out, there is no case for this being reflected in a man's pay during notice.
I fancy that from his long experience the hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley would be the first to accept that there would be room for endless dispute and argument in trying to estimate the average hours of overtime. Constantly in the Committee he and other hon. Gentlemen chided my right hon. Friend and me with the thought that we had not realised the difficulties of the working conditions in a factory and that some of our proposals were too theoretical. I think I must, with all possible respect, throw this back at him, as far as estimated hours of overtime are concerned. Nevertheless, having said that, of course we will consider very carefully the point he has put forward.
Perhaps I should add to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) that we consider it should be done in this particular way. I am sorry, but I hope that will carry the point.
Perhaps I may now turn to what the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said about holiday pay. Paragraph 2(5) of the new Schedule refers only to holiday pay in respect of the relevant period. It does not cover accumulated holiday pay for the whole year.
I turn to the next point which the hon. Gentleman made referring to the other Amendment put down about time off work. I must say quite frankly to the House that we agreed to consider this after the Committee, to see if there was any way in which we could meet the extremely desirable objective, the objective which was accepted, indeed, on both sides. We really have found it impossible to find a form of words which is flexible enough to be practical and which is at the same time capable of being enforced without giving rise to uncertainty and dispute. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) said that of course such a form of words must exist, but he was careful to say that he would not dream of trying to produce it. I really must tell the House that I doubt whether such a form of words does in fact exist, and if that be the case, however desirable our objective, it really is extremely difficult to carry it out.
Now I should like to turn to the last point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) and also the hon. Member for East Ham, North, about paragraph 5. I would say straight away that we will look at the point put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Edge Hill. It is certainly not our intention that the paragraph should be interpreted in the way he thought it might be, and if there is any danger of that, of course we shall seek to meet him on it.
6.45 p.m.
I now turn to the rather broader point which he made, and which was also made by the hon. Member for East Ham, North, the Amendment to delete paragraph 5. It is, of course, linked with the wider issues raised by the strike provisions in the First Schedule. As the hon. Member for East Ham, North said, we discussed this fully in Committee. I naturally appreciate what has been said. I think we made it abundantly clear in Committee that this Bill is not intended to be an anti-strike Measure, and I hope I have said this so often that the hon. and learned Member for Edge Hill can certainly acquit me and, I know, my right hon. Friend, of any idea that this is in our minds. It has, as we know, two main purposes.
The reason for the strike provisions in the Bill is, of course, that we have to deal with the difficult question of the effect a strike would have on the employee's period of continuous employment or, in this case, on the question of his minimum pay during notice. Really I must say to the hon. and learned Member for Edge Hill that we have not invented this problem, but at the same time we cannot ignore it. It is also of course important to solve it, and in a way which would encourage responsibility and good sense. I really do believe that the present strike provisions in the Bill as they stand do that.
The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to another provision in the First Schedule in the definition of "strike". That particular definition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury pointed out, must be read in conjunction with paragraph 7 of the First Schedule which refers to somebody taking part in a strike which breaks the contract. If it is so read, then I think it disposes

of some of the hon. and learned Member's arguments.

Mr. Irvine: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his careful treatment of the point I raised, and particularly the point of interpretation dividing his hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) and myself, but may I ask that consideration be given to this point, as he has promised it will be given to the other? There is a specific reference in the Second Schedule as it is now framed to the definition of "strike" in the First Schedule, but it is not a definition by itself, and the difficulty, everyone can agree, is that there is contained a qualification.

Mr. Whitelaw: I respond at once to the very proper point which has been put forward. but I think in general terms it does follow, if we have the present provisions as they are in the First Schedule, that the minimum pay rules should not be applied when a man gives notice that he is intending to go on strike. After all, the purpose of the rules is to safeguard the pay of the employee when having to change his job, not, I am sure the House would agree, when he is about to go on strike. I hope that the House will agree that paragraph 5 is useful and is necessary, and, provided it carries out what I have said it provides, and no more, that it would be better not to remove the paragraph.
I hope I have managed to reply to the large number of points on an extremely complex question. I am grateful for the welcome given to these provisions, and I hope that the House will pass the Amendment.

Mr. Ede: As one who was not a member of the Standing Committee on the Bill, I find it very difficult indeed to follow the argument we have been having on this Amendment. That is not because I am unappreciative of the speech which has been made by the Parliamentary Secretary, but I would have thought that, in a matter of this importance, in trying to draft a Measure to prevent unnecessary disputes from arising in industry we ought to have had the advantage of the presence of one of the Law Officers of the Crown to tell us what some of the words which have been bandied about from one side of the House to


the other really mean, if they are to be in an Act of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman was quite frank when he was discussing the new Clause which was moved by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). He said he was no lawyer, but all the things we have heard about recently on this Amendment may quite easily become matters in leading cases in the law courts in the next few years. There may be some surprises, as is usual on such occasions, because of the interpretations given to some of what appear to be quite innocent words included in a Bill in an atmosphere of general good will such as is prevailing in the discussion of this Bill.
We are in a very advanced stage of the discussion of the Bill in this House. After this stage, the next is the Third Reading, and the Bill then goes elsewhere for consideration. I assume that some of the statements made by the Parliamentary Secretary mean that the Government are noting some of the problems raised in the present discussions and intend to deal with them when the Bill is considered in another place. But if nothing is done in another place, this is our last opportunity for discussing them.
The Government, who are well equipped with Law Officers, might have been able to provide one of them for this afternoon's discussion to tell us what in the eyes of the law some of the vague words which have been used and the phrases which have been built up actually mean in law. I am sure that we all wish the Bill well. It is an effort to forestall discussions which it might be difficult to hold in a similar atmosphere and which might lead to nasty accusations of bad faith from either side. I hope that before we part with this matter we shall have the advantage of hearing the views of the Law Officers.
I was very struck when at one stage my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) made a sotto voce interjection which was at once emphatically contradicted by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers), which indicated that there was considerable difference between two hon. Members who might both be regarded as knowledgeable in the matter.

Sir S. Summers: The right hon. Gentleman would not expect me usually to agree with the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman)?

Mr. Ede: Oh, no. Two knowledgeable men can have very violent and deep-seated views on the same subject and yet differ completely. If that were not the case, there would be no employment for lawyers.
If we are not very careful, we may pass this Schedule in the hope that it will mean what each of us thinks it means, and we may then find, if it goes before the courts, that views which have not been expressed here today are held to be the exact meaning of the words which we put in the Bill. The Government themselves should have fortified the Parliamentary Secretary with one of the Law Officers to deal with these problems which he frankly admitted he could not discuss as a lawyer or about which give us a legal opinion. It is a great pity that we have not had an opportunity of getting the matter authoritatively dealt with.

Mr. Whitelaw: I accept that the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) feels that I am very inadequate and I am bound to accept his feelings on that. We had the Law Officers in Committee and they frequently came to give us the benefit of their advice. I note the right hon. Gentleman's criticism, but I think that I can give him what I hope he will feel to be a positive assurance.
First, the whole question of the new Schedule was very carefully vetted from the legal aspect, as he would be the first to appreciate from his very long experience. I can give him the positive assurance that points which have been brought forward today will certainly be discussed with the Law Officers and that when it come to consideration in another place, if there have been any doubts they will be cleared up. I understand what the right hon. Gentleman has said and I hope that my positive assurance will enable him to feel that the new Schedule is right and that we should pass it.

Mr. Ede: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should have thought that anything I said was an intimation that I regarded him as inadequate. In view of the complexities which have been raised,


I think that he has shown himself exceedingly competent, because he has expressly denied any legal training and knowledge, and at that stage that is what we want. I hope that in another place some of the problems which have been too intricate for us this afternoon will be resolved.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 2, line 19, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".

In line 29, leave out from "employment" to end of line 25 and insert:
the provisions of Schedule (Rights of employee in period of notice) to this Act shall have effect as respects the liability of the employer for the period of notice required by section 1(2) of this Act".

In line 26, leave out from "apply" to end of line 31 and insert:
in relation to a notice given by the employer or the employee if the notice to be given by the employer to terminate the contract must be at least one week more than the notice required by section 1(1) of this Act".

In line 32, leave out subsection (4).—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 2, line 37, to leave out from "void" to the end of line 39.
This Amendment proposes the deletion of the second half of subsection (5). The effect is that the minimum guaranteed by Clause 2 and the new Schedule will invariably apply to all contracts covered by Clause 2. Under subsection (5) as it stands, the guarantee would not apply to a contract giving the employee rights on the whole equivalent to or better than those given by Clause 2.
This provision was very desirable with Clause 2(1) in its original form, but the reasons for having it are much diminished under the new minimum pay rules, because they stick very much more closely to the contract. Since, therefore, the provision is necessarily rather imprecise and perhaps on that account liable to lead to dispute, I think that it is better to drop it.
It will also be remembered that during the Committee stage we had a little bit of—I do not know whether "fun" is the right word—discussion about the words
on the whole equivalent to".

They are now disappearing and I do not think that anybody will be very sorry for them. But the first half of subsection (5) remains necessary. Without it, the rights in Clause 2 might be overridden by a term in a contract which said that the parties agreed that rights under Clause 2 could be waived. I think that this is a sensible Amendment. It follows from the change of Clause 2 and the new Schedule, and I hope that the House will agree to it.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 40, leave out subsection (6).—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Clause 3.—(MEASURE OF DAMAGES IN PROCEEDINGS AGAINST EMPLOYERS.)

Amendment made: In page 3, line 3. leave out "Schedule 2" and insert:
Schedule (Rights of employee in period of notice)".—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Clause 4.—(WRITTEN PARTICULARS OF TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT.)

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, in page 3, line 8, after "and", to insert:
the written statement required by this section to be given shall not constitute a written contract".
I do not know whether I dare move this Amendment after the remarks of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) about not wanting any lawyers on these Amendments at this stage, because this is a rather legalistic Amendment. It is not entirely a drafting Amendment. I would call it a clarifying Amendment.
This is the first Amendment to Clause 4, which deals with the written particulars of the terms of employment, the written particulars to be given by the employer to the employee after a certain period of employment. Subsection (1) says that the whole Clause shall not apply so far as the terms of employment are contained in a written contract. Subsection (2) directs that certain terms shall be set out in a written statement.
In the discussions in Committee it was undoubtedly shown that at least some people were led to read and to think of the written statement as being a contract, as being the written contract of employment itself. We should make it


quite clear that that is not so, that the written statement is not the contract of employment and is not to be deemed to be any written contract. For that purpose, I wish to insert the Amendment. I will read the first three lines of the Clause as they would then appear:
This section shall apply in relation to terms of employment only if and so far as those terms are not contained in a written contract, and the written statement required by this section to be given shall not constitute a written contract.
In writing that out, I had a semi-colon at the end. It is probably quite right that the printers did not put it in, but I mention it because hon. Members might otherwise read that straight into the Clause. If one puts in a semi-colon, it makes sense.
There are two reasons for saying that we ought to mention this specifically in the Clause. The first is that there are many cases in which it has been said by Statute that some form of contract is invalid unless it is in writing, or unless there is some evidence in writing of the contract. I wish to make it quite clear that we are not doing that in the Bill. The contract of employment is perfectly valid without any written statement, before any written statement is given. There is a period between the time when the employee is engaged and that when it is necessary to give the written statement when there is no written statement. We should be clear that there is a contract at that time even though there is no written statement.
The second reason is that the written statement itself cannot create any terms of contract. It is merely to be a statement of what the employer thinks the contract means. The employee should be under no obligation to deny that in any way or to correct the statement. The statement is entirely unilateral on the part of the employer and it does not bind the employee at all. The employee should not be obliged, if he thinks the statement is wrong, to do anything about it. It would be wise for him perhaps to do so, but in law he should not be estopped from doing that in any way.
We should make it quite clear that the statement is not a contract, but merely a unilateral statement by the employer of what he thinks the contract is on certain terms. Because in discussion in Commit-

tee it was evident that this was not clear to everybody reading the Clause, I think that we ought to make it clear before it goes any further.

Mr. Whitelaw: My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) has very properly referred to a discussion which we had in Committee. While he was speaking, I looked up what I said on this point at the time. I said:
It may be that the legal advice on the matter will prove to all concerned that no change is necessary. I have, however, undertaken to consider before the next stage of the Bill whether such a change is necessary to remove all possible doubt."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 28th March, 1963; c. 375.]
I am advised that no such change is necessary and that the matter is already beyond all possible doubt. If that is so, the Amendment is really unnecessary.
The words in Clause 4(1), which this Amendment would immediately follow, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, already say that the Clause is to apply
… only if and so far as the terms are not contained in a written contract…
I am advised that there is no doubt that this makes it perfectly plain that the written statement is not a written contract. If it were one, as soon as the written statement was given to the employee, Clause 4 would stop applying, because he would then have a written contract. I think that my hon. Friend would agree that that would be so.
I think, too, that it is plain from the language of Clause 4(2) that the written statement is not the contract but only records terms which are already in existence.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me this opportunity to assure him that, on the best advice, this Amendment is not necessary, and I hope that, having had this positive assurance, he will feel able to withdraw it.

Mr. J. Robertson: In Committee, I have occasion to draw attention to the fact that in relation to Scottish law there was possibly a slightly different interpretation about contracts than that given by the hon. Gentleman. It has been ruled that if it is the clear intention initially to reduce the contract to writing, the contract is not binding until the writing has been effected. In other words, there are slightly different conditions there and, in


fact, the writing would become the contract if it were understood that it described the contract. There is no requirement in Scotland for any special seal on a contract or other requirements that are required in English courts.
I am not at all clear about this. We have not had the advantage of any Scottish Law Officer in dealing with this matter, although it was agreed by the Solicitor-General that there were very clear differences in detail in the law relating to contract between the two countries. It has not been cleared up to my satisfaction at any stage whatsoever.
I would never suggest that I am in a position to contradict anything said by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment or the Parliamentary Secretary, but I feel that at least on one occasion we might have had someone representing the Scottish position from the Government benches, because there is still a matter of doubt. The best advice that I have been able to get from people connected with the law in Scotland is that this matter is in doubt in relation to the law of Scotland, and it would be as well at sometime or other, possibly in another place, that we should have the minds of some Scottish legal people on this question of contract.

Mr. Whitelaw: I can assure the hon. Member that the Scottish Law Officers were consulted.

Mr. Graham Page: It is my hope that if this is ever questioned in court the learned judges will study the words of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I fear that they will not, but I hope that they will, and in that hope I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 3, line 9, to leave out "hours normally worked are" and to insert "hours of employment are normally".
It might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if this Amendment was considered together with the Amendments to the First Schedule which are linked with it, in page 8, line 27, leave out "working" and insert "employment", and in page 10, line 45 leave

out "worked by" and insert "of employment of".

Mr. Speaker: If the House so wishes.

Mr. Whitelaw: The purpose of the Amendments is to remove any doubt which may be occasioned by the use of the word "work" or "working" and to cover circumstances in which work may not necessarily be actually proceeding. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) gave an example of this in Committee when he referred to the position of air crews standing by when a flight was cancelled or postponed during bad weather. Such periods are, however, unquestionably covered by the word "employment" and I think everyone will agree that its use is to be preferred. I therefore ask the House to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Gunter: I beg to move, in page 3, line 10, to leave out "twenty-one" and to insert "ten".
It is not my intention to deal at length with the Amendment because the point at issue was discussed in considerable detail in Committee, but I must revert for a moment or two to that discussion because it was a most unsatisfactory one.
Time and again we came across that strange fellow in industry, the casual worker who comes and goes and who the Minister says he cannot define. It seems to us that it ought to be possible to tell the man who works for 10 hours a week that he is employed under certain terms and conditions. I do not share the Parliamentary Secretary's zeal about these provisions. I do not think it will matter a lot whether this piece of paper is given to a man who works for 21 hours a week, or to a man who works for 10 hours a week. The hon. Gentleman knows my views. This is not a contract. The hon. Gentleman has said so. It is a piece of paper which in many ways will not matter tuppence.
If, however, we are to have a slip of paper, a little chitty, setting out the terms and conditions on which a man is employed, I cannot for the life of me see why he should not be given a piece of paper if he is employed for 10, 15, or 19 hours a week. There are many people who work for only two or three hours a day. A man may be employed in a canteen or as a crossing patrol keeper


and may not put in 21 hours a week. I cannot understand why he should not be included in this provision.
During our discussions in Committee upstairs the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) forsook his usual aloofness and said that we did not understand the working classes, and that our claim to understand them was not true because we did not talk to them. I began to wonder what the hon. Gentleman was getting at. He then said that if we were to meet the women and girls in his village who picked potatoes we would be able to talk sense about working-class conditions. I do not know a lot about that type of labour because my experience has been in the large industries, but for the life of me I cannot understand why someone who normally and regularly works less than 21 hours a week should not be informed of his terms of employment, in the same way as workers who work a longer week are informed of theirs.
Some people in my constituency are employed for three hours a day, and five days a week, making sausages. Why should not they be told about their conditions of work for making sausages, just as a bloke who works for 42 hours a week at some other job is told his conditions of work? I ask the Minister to look at this again with a view to including these other people. If this provision is to be of any value, I fail to understand why the person who works for fewer than 21 hours a week should not be told of his terms of work.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. K. Lewis: The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) talked about people who worked sausage machines for 10 hours a week. There are many people who work for 10 hours or less a week, and I doubt very much whether they would be enthusiastic about having a written contract of service.

Mr. Gunter: I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. This is not a written contract of service.

Mr. Lewis: At any rate it is a written contract.

Mr. Gunter: It is not a contract. It is merely a bit of paper.

Mr. Lewis: This is the Contracts of Employment Bill, and employees are to

have a piece of paper on which is set out their terms of employment. We have to draw the line somewhere, and I think that the Minister has drawn it in the right place, because 21 hours represent about half the average working week.
There are many people who take on casual work. One can think of the paper boy, the old-age pensioner who takes on the odd job, the daily help, and so on. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wants these people to be included in the provisions of this Clause. The fact that a contract in the form of a piece of paper is to be given to people employed in industry does not mean that everybody has to be included in the scheme. We ought to leave an area in which the arrangement between the employer and the employee is a verbal one. We do not want to tie everybody to written terms of employment, and I think that it is reasonable to draw the line at 21 hours. If we bring in people who work for only 10 hours a week, we shall go much too far, and I therefore remain convinced that 21 hours is about right, and that 10 hours is too low.

Mr. Gunter: If this piece of paper is to be of any value, or to give any protection, the people about whom the hon. Gentleman has been talking are the people who need it most. Those employed in large industries do not need it.

Mr. Lewis: The hon. Gentleman is making a case for not giving a piece of paper at all. It has been generally accepted that this piece of paper is to be given to people employed in industry, but that does not mean that we have to go right down the line and bring in everybody. It does not mean that we have to bring in the man who has come to the end of his normal working life and is doing the odd job. It does not mean that we have to include the young lad who has not started his working life but who does a paper round in the morning. There is no reason at all why they should be included, and I think that the choice of 21 hours is correct.

Mr. John McCann: I intervene briefly to support the Amendment because I raised this point in Committee and I believe that the Amendment will help to remove an anomaly.
In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert)


raised the question of road crossing attendants and home helps. These people are employed in greater numbers than ever before. The Minister made a determined defence of his point of view and asked us to withdraw the Amendment on the undertaking that he would look at this question again. We are now at the Report stage, and the Minister has not kept his promise. The hon. Gentleman made a significant remark in Committee. He said that there was no evidence to show that there were a significant number of people who worked for fewer than twenty-one hours a week who needed the protection of the Bill. Has the Minister made any inquiries to discover whether that statement is true?
During our discussions in Committee I raised the question of manufacturers' agents. These people usually work for more than twenty-one hours a week, but because they work for different employers they are denied the protection of the Bill. It was in order to try to bring them within the scope of the Bill that I raised this question. The Commercial Travellers' Association wrote to the Minister about this, and on 8th April, in reply, he said:
Clause 4 of the Bill will apply to employees who normally work for their employer; for 21 hours or more a week. If an employee works for each of two employers at least 21 hours a week then he may acquire rights with both of them. Whether or not a person is an 'employee' will depend on whether he comes within the definition of 'employee' in Clause 6.
This means that if an employee works for three different employers for twenty hours a week each and works for sixty hours a week instead of twenty-one, he still will not qualify for notice, whereas under this Amendment if he works for three employers for thirty hours a week he will.
The end of the Association's letter to me epitomises what a number of people feel. It says:
we must now hope that the Minister will be accommodating in recognising the genuine needs of many thousands of hard working citizens who play a vital part in the nation's trade and commerce and have therefore a right to expect some recognition and protection in the legislation now before the House".
We all recognise that a manufacturer's agent does exactly the same work as a commercial traveller, who, because he works for one employer, is covered. If the manufacturer's agent works for two

employers and does less than twenty-one hours a week for each, he is not covered. I support the Amendment, because it would bring many thousands of these people within the ambit of the Bill.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann) has raised an interesting point which had not occurred to me, and which did not occur to other Members when the Committee discussed the question of the number of hours worked. We were then directing our minds to people on the shop floor, clerical workers, and so on. We did not realise that there are commercial travellers who work on a week's notice, sometimes given orally. I take it that a full-time commercial traveller will come within the provisions of the Bill as well as anybody on the shop floor.
The problem which the hon. Member has raised arises in the case of the manufacturing agent who works for more than one employer. There again, I suppose that if he works twenty-one hours or more for each of two employers he is entitled to two separate bits of paper—one from each employer. But if he is working for three employers he is presumably working a normal week of only fourteen hours for each, and is not covered. But in that case I cannot help feeling that he is well on the way towards being self-employed. I imagine that he holds himself open to enter into a contract with a large number of manufacturers and employers If he is a self-employed person it is open to him to make his own contract with each separate employer.

Mr. McCann: The point is that he may be working on an agency for somebody else. Since he does not do twenty-one hours a week, although he may have worked for years, and built up an agency, he can still have the agency taken from him without notice.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I agree. If he is working only under an oral arrangement he can lose his agency quickly. But if a man takes on three of four agencies he is becoming rather like a professional man—like an accountant with various clients. In that case it is up to him to make his separate arrangements with each manufacturer.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will say a few words on this problem, because we did not discuss it in Committee. A case of this kind was brought to my attention recently. The straightforward commercial traveller is fully covered, but I have my doubt about the manufacturers' agent.

Mr. James Dempsey: I did not have the advantage of hearing the opinions stated in Committee, but from the speeches that I have heard, especially from hon. Members opposite, one would imagine that the piece of paper that we are referring to is a written contract, instead of merely being an informative notification of the terms of employment. Hon. Members opposite are placing that emphasis on the Amendment.

Mr. Graham Page: Not this hon. Member.

Mr. Dempsey: I think that hon. Members opposite are taking the wrong line. They overlook the fact that what we are talking about is a piece of paper informing people, as a matter of decency, of the conditions under which they are employed—a piece of paper which merely gives them formal notification of their terms of employment.
I know of several sections of the community whose members work for less than 21 hours a week, and who will therefore be ineligible to receive this simple formal notification. There are office cleaners, who work two hours in the mornings and two hours in the afternoons. They work four hours a day, for five days a week, which means that they work only 20 hours each week. Under the terms of the Bill they will not receive this notification of their terms of employment. That seems to me to be unfair. If it is correct that what we are discussing is a simple notification, I cannot see why that category of person should be excluded.
Then there are dining room attendants, who will be employed under conditions which will not be notified to them. They may be employed for three hours a day and five days a week—fifteen hours a week in all. They will not be covered, in spite of the fact that the Joint Industrial Council for Scotland caters for this category in the matter of sickness and holiday periods. This Council goes to a

great deal of trouble to give these part-time employees protection by taking various measures, and yet they are to be denied the simple notification which the Clause provides for part-time workers throughout the country, because they are employed less than 21 hours per week.
There are several other similar categories of worker. I do not agree with the hon. Member opposite who stated that we are talking about persons who have some other form of subsidiary employment. He also mentioned old folks who had become crossing wardens in order to augment their miserable pensions. But we are discussing other people as well. There are working widowed mothers, who are able to work only for a part of the working week because of their family responsibilities. There are thousands of part-time shop assistants. Our distributive trades could never meet consumer demand without the employment of that part-time element in our shops. They work for less than 21 hours a week at week-ends.
If the Parliamentary Secretary really has examined the question he must have overlooked all these categories. I hope that he will agree to consider the matter again. He will have nothing to lose. I have often heard hon. Members opposite say that this piece of paper is definitely not a contract; it is merely a modified form of notification of terms of employment. If that be so, as we are told that it is—that is the argument to which I have listened—there can be no valid reason why people who work fewer than 21 hours a week should be excluded. Many people have to take such part-time work to augment low wages and pensions, and I do not see anything unreasonable in asking the Minister to accept this Amendment.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Whitelaw: When the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. McCann) was referring to manufacturers' agents being keen to come within the ambit of this provision I could not help reflecting that his argument ran counter to the rather derogatory remarks of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) about "a little bit of paper". If manufacturers' agents regarded the matter as the hon. Member for Southwark sought to regard it, perhaps they would not be so keen. I must tell the hon. Member for Rochdale


that manufacturers' agents are usually self-employed, and therefore they are not covered by the provisions in this Bill. Many of them have written contracts which are not contracts of employment. I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) about the position of commercial travellers who work for one employer.
There seem to be an implied rebuke in the words of the hon. Member for Southwark because I was not sufficiently definite on a previous occasion during a Committee stage discussion. But I was charged by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) with being dogmatic. When I sought not to be dogmatic, I was told that I was not sufficiently definite. I was trying to please both hon. Gentlemen which was perhaps, an unwise thing for me to attempt, and I will not fall into the same trap again.
The requirement regarding a written statement will not apply if an employee normally works fewer than twenty-one hours a week for an employer. The Opposition Amendment seeks to reduce that period to ten hours and we have had proposals to vary the figure downwards and upwards. I admit—this is why I think it so difficult to be dogmatic—that this is very much a question of judgment as to where the line should be drawn. The Government have chosen a minimum period of twenty-one hours, because it would not cover employees working for less than half of a normal working week. In other words, it is reasonable to assume that those who will be covered by the provisions in the Bill are people who rely for their livelihood upon their employment to a substantial extent.

Mr. Gunter: Has consideration been given to the change which is taking place in the employment situation because of the five-day week, and the fact that many people work for four hours a day for five days a week? I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will know that many people work twenty hours a week, which is one hour less than the normal.

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member for Southwark and the hon. Member for East Ham, North, being quicker than me, often arrive before I do at a point which I am just about to reach. I am coming to that point, which is a valid one, and I accept it at once.
I was asked, I think by the hon. Member for Rochdale, whether consideration had been given to the position of some people who worked for fewer than twenty-one hours, but who relied to a substantial extent on their job for their livelihood. We have discovered that this is the case with those who work what is known as the twilight shift—it was referred to by the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson)—who number about 25,000 and are nearly all women with domestic responsibilities. That is the position at the present time. We did not find any other large section of the community which works in a similar fashion.

Mr. Dempsey: What about part-time shop assistants?

Mr. Whitelaw: By his intervention from a sitting position the hon. Member far Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) has helped my argument. The hon. Gentleman referred to shop assistants who are part-time. My case is that the provisions in the Bill should cover people who rely to a substantial extent on their job for their livelihood.

Mr. Dempsey: I was trying to emphasise that a number of people living north of the Border, who are part-time shop assistants, work on Friday or Saturday, or only at the weekends when there is an increased volume of trade.

Mr. Whitelaw: Those are just the people whom I think it doubtful that we should cover by the provisions in this Bill.
If we made the figure ten hours, we should include people with spare-time occupations and those who do weekend jobs, and I do not think that it would be right to apply the requirements in this Bill when the employment relationship is not of substantial importance to the parties concerned. Having considered this matter again, and looked for classes of people who work for fewer than twenty-one hours and yet rely to a substantial extent on their job for their livelihood, we have decided that a period of twenty-one hours is right at the present time. I admit that this is a question of judgment about where the line should be drawn. But we believe that the figure of twenty-one is correct.
The hon. Member for Southwark suggested that there is an increasing tendency for people to work for fewer than twenty-one hours and that this tendency may increase. The hon. Gentleman has a point. I believe it right to keep the figure of twenty-one hours at the present time. But in order to meet his point, we will consider whether it would be right to take power to vary the period, if that proved necessary in the light of further developments regarding working hours. I think that is a sensible thing to do in view of any further developments. But I stick to my contention that at present the right place at which to draw the line is at twenty-one hours. There may be a difference of opinion on the matter, and that I accept. But having decided that, and although this is a matter of judgment, I think that that figure should remain.

Mr. Gunter: In view of the Parliamentary Secretary's last remarks, are we to understand that it is the intention of the Government to support a 40-hour week throughout industry?

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member for Southwark is too old a hand to think that he can draw me one way or another into discussing wider issues than those relating to the provisions in this Bill. I am saying that I believe that twenty-one hours is the correct figure and the right place at which to draw the line at the present time. But, in view of developments which could occur, it would be right to consider whether it is proper to take power to vary that provision.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 3, line 11, to leave out "five" and to insert "thirteen".

Mr. Speaker: With this Amendment it would be convenient to discuss the next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter): in page 3, line 11, leave out "five" and insert "two".

Mr. Whitelaw: Would it also be convenient, Mr. Speaker, to discuss at the same time the two Government Amendments in page 5, lines 17 and 18.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, if that is desired.

Mr. Whitelaw: These Amendments

concern the time limit by which written statements are to be given under Clause 4. There was considerable discussion on this point in Committee. The Committee had before it some Amendments which would have reduced the time limit, or even abolished it altogether, and other Amendments which proposed an extension of the time limit to fifteen or twenty-six weeks. At the conclusion of the discussion, my right hon. Friend made clear that he had been convinced that it was no longer possible to retain the five-week period and that the period must be extended. He did not at that time commit himself to an exact period. Since then, as these Amendments show, he has decided that it would be right to make the period thirteen weeks.
The arguments for lengthening the time limit was put powerfully by my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) and for Derbyshire, West, (Mr. Crawley) and were fully discussed. I do not think it necessary to set out those arguments at great length now.
The difficulty arises from casual and temporary employments. The most outstanding example is in agriculture. A very small proportion of farmers have any clerical work, yet a farmer with perhaps one or two permanent employees may engage large numbers of people on a casual basis to help at particular times of the year. Not only is the number large, but those people come and go and are replaced by others. It is impossible for the farmer to say which ones have been with him continuously for five weeks working twenty-one hours or more a week. These casual workers where they work on a succession of crops may stay with the same employer for a total of up to three months. It would be quite impractical to require the farmer to give these casual workers written statements.
There are many other industries where there is a fringe, small or great, of casual and temporary workers. It is very doubtful whether the labour put on the employer of producing written statements would be justified by the benefits to the employee. Their employment often lasts more than five weeks, but many look on the job simply as a means of earning some extra spending money and not as a serious sort of livelihood.
The other Amendments affect Clause 4(12). The change they would make is


partly consequential on a decision to abandon the five-week limit which is referred to in Clause 4(12). It would also get rid of a weakness in the present wording which was pointed out in Committee by the hon. Member for East Ham, North, who moved an Amendment for the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) in his absence. The weakness is that under the present wording an employer commits no offence by giving his employee false particulars of his terms if the employee happens to leave before the time limit is up. This is clearly wrong, but it is put right in the Amendments that we now propose.
I do not imagine that in moving this Amendment I am likely to carry the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) or the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), with me on this occasion. Nevertheless, having considered the discussion in Committee and the particular problems with which we are confronted, I think that this period of thirteen weeks is right.

Mr. Prentice: I am most grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for one thing. In undertaking the formidable task of deputising for my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) I seem to have secured a tactical victory in reference to the suggested Amendment to page 5, line 17.
The Parliamentary Secretary was right in saying that he would not carry us with him on the Amendment he has moved, for it is clearly a retrograde step. My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), when moving the previous Amendment, said that we did not feel that the statement provided for by this Clause would be of great value to a large number of workers. This is our view, but so far as it has value it would be more likely to be achieved for people whose type of employment is rather less secure than the average. Anyone who goes to work in a large industry where there are written contracts and agreements is likely to find what his terms of employment are more easily than people who work for shorter periods in various types of employment which are not organised and subject to negotiations. Those people will be much more likely to benefit from a statement of this kind.
For that reason we wanted to bring the period down as low as possible and in Committee we sought to reduce the five-week period. Now we wish to resist the Government's intention of raising it to thirteen weeks. No real case has been made in favour of the thirteen-week period. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the case was put powerfully by some of his hon. Friends in Committee. That powerful argument escapes my recollection and I do not think there has been powerful argument employed by the Parliamentary Secretary this evening. It seems to boil down to the position of the poor farmer struggling by the light of an oil lamp late at night trying to spell a statement out on the back of an envelope. Because he has no clerical help of any kind, this is a great burden to him. I think that is nonsense. Inevitably the filling in of forms has become part of agricultural work. The very system of agricultural support which is welcomed keenly by farmers inevitably involves a lot of form filling. The amount of form filling provided under this Clause would be very modest.
It comprises just a few particulars to be given to an employee. To suggest that that is a big clerical burden for the farmer or anyone is absolute nonsense. The person who would go for a period of employment between five and thirteen weeks would be the very person who could be exploited. If I went to a farmer seeking work of that kind and he found—as he would find—that I am a timid and tongue-tied sort of chap, I might not be able to establish the terms on which I was employed. I might not know what difference it would make whether I was working for a small number of hours because of bad weather or from dawn to dusk on a summer's day because the weather was good and advantage must be taken of it. I might not be quite clear about the amount of pay to which I was entitled.
It is just that type of person who ought to have a clear statement as a matter of right. The case is stronger for people employed for between five weeks and thirteen weeks than for people employed for longer periods. We therefore insist that this is not a good Amendment and we hope that we may get support from hon. Members opposite in that view.

7.45 p.m.

Sir S. Summers: Anyone who hears an argument described as powerful and does not agree with that argument cannot, of course, accept that it is powerful. I do not want to go over the ground very much again in supporting the Government on this thirteen weeks, which I think is not only nearly right but quite right as the period for this purpose.
The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) got a little confused about the farmer. It was not this particular exercise which it was thought would be likely to worry farmers—the calculation of the six months average pay for those who might have to have their wages assessed during notice. Leaving aside the occasional workers, farmers hope that those who come to work for them will stay in their employment. For those people the farmer will have to write a document comprising the relevant conditions given in Clause 4. It is absurd to suggest that those who work for this magic period, described as particularly relevant—five to thirteen weeks—should have a document telling them of the holidays they will get, of the pay they will receive while on holiday, what will happen if they suffer sickness or injury, and to what sort of pensions they will be entitled in that period.
This document and the number of weeks which shall elapse before the man is entitled to receive it are intended to apply to people who will be in long-term employment, not those employed for a period anything like as short as two weeks. The change to two weeks from five would be infinitely worse than the five weeks. I hope that the Government will stick to the thirteen weeks.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: I regard this Amendment as the most mischievous thing the Government have perpetrated in connection with the Bill. The hypothesis in which this matter is all the time considered is that some serious importance attaches to the passing of what has been described as a piece of paper. It is regarded as important that there should be available this statement of what the terms and conditions of service are. If the document possesses that importance, it justifies the whole exercise. It is clearly desirable that it should pass as soon as reasonably practicable and that the employee should have it as early as

may be. It is derogatory of the importance of the document that so long a period as thirteen weeks could elapse before there is any need to hand it over. Many people in future times will notice this, will reflect that it is an extraordinarily long time to delay before the document is required to pass, and will want to know the reason for this delay, which is quite indefensible. In nine cases out of ten it will serve no useful purpose.
The reason why is apparent to us. The reason is that the Government have found it totally impossible to incorporate in the Bill a definition of the casual worker. There is no other reason. I think this will be recognised on both sides of the House. Workers who are not casual workers will have to wait longer than is necessary, and longer than is desirable, for the transmission of the document, because of the difficulty which was found in separating them as a matter of definition from casual workers.
I think that this is a disappointing step. It reveals the lack of enthusiasm amongst hon. Members opposite for their own Bill. I wish that the Bill would provide for the passing of the document after the shortest possible interval of time. To the extent that that would cause difficulty in the case of casual workers—I acknowledge that it might if the matter were left there—I wish that the difficulty had been overcome by a clear and crisp definition in the Bill of the workers who should not be expected to receive the statement so early because of the casual character of the employment in which they are engaged. There should be a definition of the casual worker which would in this way make it not necessary in this case for the document to pass in the minimum period. I do not think this has been handled in a fashion which reveals any confidence in their own Bill on the part of hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Diamond: The Parliamentary Secretary has great prescience. He was right in saying that he would not carry any of us, myself in particular, on this Amendment. It is, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) said, a retrograde step and a most regrettable one. I want to approach the matter in a slightly different way. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) has said that this thirteen weeks is not


only about right but just right. That was a powerful thing to say. It is something to lend oneself to an exact thirteen weeks. Twelve and a half would be wrong. Thirteen and a half equally would be wrong. However, I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman has excellent reasons for saying this.
If I am right, the hon. Gentleman also said in Committee that one of the great arguments for this period would be that it should coincide with the period which we have referred to earlier in the Bill after which a notice of one week has to be given. The hon. Gentleman was supported by other hon. Members opposite, who said that there was a considerable argument in favour of making these two provisions the same in point of time.
One of the particulars which has to be given on this paper after thirteen weeks is—
the length of notice which the employee is obliged to give and entitled to receive …
What is the length of notice after thirteen weeks? If the employer is relying on the statutory provisions, at the end of thirteen weeks under the Bill as it stands at present the length of notice is nothing. In three months' time it will be a week's notice. Immediately complications arise.
The Parliamentary Secretary carefully avoided making any comment as to why this period would be a different period

from the previous one. It was open to him to make some comment on this, because both periods are being altered. If one was fixed and we were considering only one, that would be a different matter, but this afternoon we have considered both.

It would be wrong for me to hark back, but it is justifiable for me to say that if the Parliamentary Secretary had referred to thirteen weeks instead of twenty-six weeks at an earlier stage of the Bill he could have used that argument in support of thirteen weeks at this point. He has not done so and he has not acceded to the argument strongly pressed on him by many of his hon. Friends in Committee that these two periods should be identical. As he has not done so, he has denied himself the only possible argument in support of thirteen weeks. I share with my hon. and learned Friend the very strong view that this is a retrograde step. It is a great pity that it is being taken, because throughout the Committee stage and to-day we have moved the Bill forward in a progressive sense. This is the one sense in which it is going backwards, and it is going backwards badly. I only wish that I had more than one vote in the Division Lobby.

Question put, That "five" stand part of the Bill:—

The House divided: Ayes 161, Noes 204.

Division No. 105.]
AYES
[7.57 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Hill, J. (Midlothian)


Ainsley, William
Dempsey, James
Holman, Percy


Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)
Diamond, John
Houghton, Douglas


Bacon, Miss Alice
Dodds, Norman
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)


Barnett, Guy
Donnelly, Desmond
Hoy, James H.


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Driberg, Tom
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)


Beaney, Alan
Duffy, A. E. P.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)


Bence, Cyril
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Edelman, Maurice
Hunter, A. E.


Benson, Sir George
Edwards,Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)


Blackburn, F.
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)


Blyton, William
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Boardman, H.
Ferrlyhough, E.
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Fletcher, Eric
Janner, Sir Barnett


Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S.W.)
Forman, J, C.
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas


Boyden, James
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)


Bradley, Tom
Galpern, Sir Myer
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Brockway, A. Fenner
Ginsburg, David
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Gourlay, Harry
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Greenwood, Anthony
Kelley, Richard


Carmichael, Neil
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Kenyon, Clifford


Collick, Percy
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
King, Dr. Horace


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Gunter, Ray
Lawson, George


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Ledger, Ron


Crossman, D. H. S.
Hannan, William
Lee, Frederick (Newton)


Dalyell, Tam
Harper, Joseph
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)


Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Hart, Mrs. Judith
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hayman, F. H.
Loughlin, Charles






Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Owen, Will
Stonehouse, John


McBride, N.
Paget, R. T.
Stones, William


McCann, John
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Symonds, J. B.


MacDermot, Niall
Peart, Frederick
Taverne, D.


McInnes, James
Pentland, Norman
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Prentice, R. E.
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


MacPhereon, Malcolm (Stirling)
Probert, Arthur
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Randall, Harry
Timmons, John


Manuel, Archie
Rankin, John
Tomney, Frank


Mapp, Charles
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wainwright, Edwin


Marsh, Richard
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Warbey, William


Mason, Boy
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Watkins, Tudor


Mendelson, J. J.
Rodgers, John (Sevonoaks)
Weitzman, David


Millan Bruce
Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)
Whitlock William


Mitchison, G. R.
Ross, William



Moody, A. S.
Short, Edward
Wilkins, W. A.


Morris, John
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Moyle, Arthur
Skeffington, Arthur
Williams, LI. (Abertillery)


Mulley, Frederick
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Neal, Harold
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philp(Derby,S.)
Small, William
Winterbottom, R. E.


Oliver, G. H.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


O'Malley, B. K.
Spriggs, Leslie



Oram, A. E.
Steele, Thomas
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Oswald, Thomas
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Mr. Bedhead and Mr. Grey.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Errington, Sir Eric
Longbottom, Charles


Allason, James
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Loveys, Walter H.


Arbuthnot, John
Farr, John
Lubbock, Eric


Atkins, Humphrey
Fell, Anthony
McLaren, Martin


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Finlay, Graeme
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia


Barlow, Sir John
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Maclean,SirFitzroy(Bute&amp;N.Ayrs)


Batsford, Brian
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)


Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)
Gammans, Lady
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)


Berkeley, Humphry
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)
McMaster, Stanley R.


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)


Biffen, John
Goodhart, Philip
Macpherson.Rt.Hn.Nial(Dumfriea)


Bingham, B. M.
Goodhew, Victor
Maginnis, John E.


Bishop, F. P.
Cough, Frederick
Maitland, Sir John


Black, Sir Cyril
Gower, Raymond
Markham, Major Sir Frank


Bossom, Hon. Clive
Grant-Ferris, R.
Marten, Nell


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Gresham Cooke, R.
Mawby, Ray


Box, Donald
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.


Brewis, John
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Brooman-White, R.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mills, Stratton


Bryan, Paul
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Miscampbell, Norman


Buck, Antony
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Montgomery, Fergus


Bullard, Denys
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Morgan, William


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Hendry, Forbes
Neave, Airey


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Hiley, Joseph
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey


Cary, Sir Robert
Hirst, Geoffrey
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie


Chichester-Clark, R.
Hocking, Philip N.
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Holland, Philip
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hollingworth, John
Peel, John


Clarke, Brig. Terence(Portsmth,W.)
Hooson, H. E.
Percival, Ian


Cleaver, Leonard
Hornby, R. P.
Peyton, John


Cole, Norman
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth


Cooper, A. E.
Hughes-Young, Michael
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Hulbert, Sir Norman
Pilkington, Sir Richard


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pitt, Dame Edith


Cordle, John
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pott, Percivail


Corfield, F. V.
James, David
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Costain, A. P.
Jennings, J. C.
Prior, J. M. L.


Coulson, Michael
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Johnson Smith, Geofirey
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Cunningham, Knox
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Pym, Francis


Currie, G. B. H.
Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Ramsden, James


Dance, James
Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith
Rawlinson, Sir Peter


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


de Ferranti, Basil
Kershaw, Anthony
Ridsdale, Julian


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Kirk, Peter
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Doughty, Charles
Kitson, Timothy
Roots, William


Drayson, G. B.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)


du Cann, Edward
Leavey, J. A.
Russell, Ronald


Duncan, Sir James
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
St. Clair, M.


Eden, John
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Sharpies, Richard


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Lilley, F. J. P.
Shaw, M.


Elliott,R.W.(Newc'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
Lindsay, Sir Martin
Shepherd, William


Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Litchfield, Capt. John
Skeet, T. H. H.







Smith, Dudley (Br'tnf'd &amp; Chiswick)
Thorpe, Jeremy
Ward, Dame Irene


Speir, Rupert
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Stevens, Geoffrey
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Whitelaw, William


Stodart, J. A.
Turner, Colin
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Storey, Sir Samuel
Tweedsmuir, Lady
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Studholme, Sir Henry
van Straubenzee, W. R.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Summers, Sir Spencer
Vane, W. M. F.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Woodhouse, C. M.


Teeling, Sir William
Wade, Donald
Woodnutt, Mark


Temple, John M.
Walder, David
Woollam, John


Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Walker, Peter



Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Wall, Patrick
Mr. Rees and Mr. MacArthur.

Word "thirteen" there inserted in the Bill.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 3, line 22, at the end to insert:
(including any terms and conditions relating to normal working hours),".
The effect of this Amendment is to provide that when putting into writing any terms and conditions relating to hours of work the employer is to include any terms and conditions relating to normal working hours.
The Amendment serves a useful purpose in assisting the new rules for minimum pay during notice to be applied. As I explained earlier, different provisions are to apply to employees who have normal working hours and those, such as commercial travellers, who do not. It will obviously help in the application of the provisions if it is clear from the written statement given to the employee under the Clause whether there are any normal working hours and, if so, what they are. The Amendment will draw attention to the point and I hope, therefore, that the House will agree that it is useful and should be adopted.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: I beg to move, in page 3, line 38, at the end to insert:
Provided further that anything contained in the written statement aforesaid purporting to derogate from an employer's duty or obligations by statute or common law shall have no effect in derogating from such duty or obligations.
This Amendment raises a point about which we received an assurance in Committee upstairs to the effect that the proposals made at that time would be considered by the Government. I infer from the fact that no Government Amendmnet has been tabled that they have received advice that it is not necessary to make provision in the Bill for the

difficulty that this Amendment is designed to meet.
This does not altogether surprise me. Nevertheless, my hon. Friends and I still believe that it would be desirable for the Amendment to be accepted. We have been reminded time and again today that the written statement is not to be a contract. The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) moved an Amendment to make this abundantly clear in the body of the Bill, and after that Amendment was rejected the House received abundant evidence from the confusion which arose on the benches opposite that there was force in the argument the hon. Member for Crosby had deployed.
Be that as it may, it is now understood that the written statement is not a contract. However, I do not believe that that concludes the matter, particularly when one considers the desirability of requiring there to be on the statement the kind of provision for which we are asking in the Amendment. Many an employee on receipt of the statement will, however mistakenly, think that it is a contract, or that it is conclusive evidence of the character of the contract under which he is working. That being so, it is very desirable that no misunderstanding should arise. Our Amendment is designed to avoid the risk that in the particular circumstances, albeit they are likely to be rare, there will be incorporated in the written statement language that would purport
… to derogate from an employer's duty or obligations by statute or common law …
The fact that the written statement would have no legal effect is not conclusive, because the recipient might think that it had some enforceable effect—such cases might be rare, but this would be by no means the first time that we have provided for them—and might conceivably


be discouraged, because of provisions in the written statement, from initiating proceedings on his own or courses designed to remedy what he regarded as a wrong.
If this proviso appeared in the Bill, it would be some discouragement to employers to resort to a course of action about which I have expressed anxiety, and it would diminish, although it would not altogether exclude, the risk that there might appear in the written statement words derogatory to common law and statutory rights purporting to be enforceable and which, although not enforceable, might be regarded by the employee recipient as being enforceable and, therefore, adversely affect the action he takes.

Mr. Whitelaw: I fully appreciate why the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) has moved this Amendment. He has rightly returned to a point which, in Standing Committee, we agreed to consider, without commitment. He has made it clear that he thinks it extremely unlikely that anything contained in the written statement might be presented in such a fashion as to derogate from either statute or common law. I must tell him that the advice I have had on this point is perfectly clear and that, of course, is why nothing has been put down at this stage. There is really no possibility that anything in a written statement could have this effect. The written statement merely reflects the terms of an already existing contract. It is quite clear that an employer does not have the power to use the written statement for any such purpose as evading obligations under statute or common law.
Having said all that, I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman s anxieties, but we have to remember that Clause 4(10) provides penalties for including false information in the written statement. An employer who attempted to do anything of the kind that the hon. and learned Gentleman probably has in mind might run the risk of incurring a criminal penalty as, I think, the hon. and learned Gentleman would agree.
He then asked why, if it would help the people who might have doubts, such a proviso should not be added. There is always a temptation to say that if a provision cannot do any harm it might as well be added as it can only do good, but

declaratory provisions can do harm—as I need hardly tell the hon. and learned Gentleman—because of what they leave unsaid. Clause 4 is already heavily enough burdened without the addition of anything that I think might be superfluous. I take the hon. and learned Gentleman's point, and I think he takes mine, but because I think that the point the Amendment seeks to make is already absolutely clear, I suggest that, on balance, it would be better not to adopt it.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made:

in page 5, line 17, at beginning insert:
If an employee's employment terminates within the time limited by this section for giving a statement required under subsection (2) or subsection (5) of this section, and before the statement is given".
In line 18, leave out from first "of" to end of line 19 and insert:
the failure to give the statement".—[Mr. Hare.]

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Diamond: I beg to move in page 5, line 37, at the end to insert:
and without prejudice to the generalities of the foregoing such further particulars may be particulars of the amount of the severance payment to be made by the employer to the employee in respect of the termination of employment".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that with this Amendment we can also take the Amendment in page 7, line 10, at end insert:
severance payment" means a payment, whether contractual or not, which is made by an employer to an employee and which is in respect of this termination of his employment and not by way of commutation of any right which the employee would have had if his employment had been continued.

Mr. Diamond: At last we come to an Amendment which the Government will be prepared to accept, notwithstanding that it comes from the Opposition—for the first time during the course of today. I say that because this Amendment has been put down entirely to meet their convenience. I do not expect the House to accept the Amendment in these precise words, because a misprint appears to have crept in. The word "generalities" should read "generality," but I feel sure that the error can be dealt with either by a manuscript Amendment or, possibly, without any Amendment but by an adjustment in the usual way.
The purpose of this Amendment, and of that which we are considering with it, and why I am reasonably confident about its acceptance, is that in the Standing Committee we had considerable discussion about the relevance of introducing into the Bill at this stage a reference to severance pay. Severance pay was mentioned in the Bill in the first place and the definition was there incorporated, so that all I need say about the second Amendment is that it copies, word for word, the definition appearing in the Bill in the first place.
However, the way the matter was dealt with in Committee was to suggest, in a new Clause, that at the same point of time at which the notice was given there should be given to the employee information as to the amount of severance pay to which he was entitled. This suggestion was based on the very solid ground that it is at that point of time that the employee is particularly interested in the amount of severance pay he will get. Indeed, it is not until he is declared redundant that any right to receive severance pay will arise.
The Minister was then good enough to say, not only that, in general terms, he was in favour of some redundancy scheme providing for severance payment—in principle, although not in any particular detail—but that he would consider the matter if the new Clause was withdrawn. The new Clause was withdrawn so that consideration could take place, and the Parliamentary Secretary has been courteous enough to address a letter to me, for which I am very grateful, explaining why it was not thought right for the Government to introduce the same new Clause, or words having the same effect. I do not want to embarrass the hon. Gentleman, but I share his view that the matter could have been dealt with even more efficiently than we dealt with it in the Standing Committee, but before receipt of his letter we had put down this Amendment.
Although an Amendment to deal with this matter at a point of time when notice is given is a good idea, an even better idea is to deal with it right at the start when a man is employed. Therefore, if when a man is employed one of the particulars referring to his employment which is to be notified under the Clause we are now discussing is one dealing

with severance pay, it means that from the point of time when those particulars are reduced to writing there is complete clarity about the terms of his employment and, in particular, the severance pay to which he is entitled.
The first idea was good. To do what is now proposed would be better, but the best idea of all is the one on the Order Paper, because it leaves complete flexibility to the Minister and leaves it to his discretion whether reference to severance pay is included or not in particulars of employment. We are discussing an Amendment to subsection (14) by which the Minister has power by order to provide for additional particulars to be included in the statement to which the Clause refers. These additional particulars might or might not include severance pay. I am suggesting that they would, once we have moved forward to that stage.
There might be difficulty in including severance pay at present, because we all know that only a very small proportion of firms make severance payments. Although it is a good thing to draw attention to the fact that severance pay is a matter to be considered, we do not want to put those who have severance pay schemes at a possible disadvantage compared with those who have no such scheme.
The whole justification for our Amendment in this form is that there is no scheme for severance pay at the moment, but we hope very much that in the autumn the Government will be introducing legislation to that effect and that shortly there will be one. We say this because very senior Ministers—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of Labour—have undertaken that this will be the case. Speeches have been made making it quite clear that legislation is coming. N.E.D.C. has reported for the second time, and its second Report makes even clearer than its first the need for some kind of redundancy scheme involving severance pay.
I want the Government to realise the way informed public opinion is moving in favour of this. Because this matter is being considered by representatives of employers and the T.U.C., I mention that employers have shown in one instance how conscious they are of the need for


proper severance pay arrangements. I referred in Committee to the outrageous case—and I repeat that it was outrageous—where in a firm which I did not mention, and I am glad that I did not, four foremen and one staff inspector who had been with their employers for periods varying between 37 years and 41 years, the minimum being 37, were given notice at 10.30 on a Friday morning which expired at 4.30 p.m. that day. Their ages were between 56 and 63 and their services, not as workmen but as foremen on the staff, extended to over 20 years each.
These men were given six hours' notice and four weeks' wages in lieu of notice, and this in conflict with an arrangement which had been made with trade union representatives that redundancy would be the subject of discussion and consultation first, quite apart from the question of any redundancy pay. I am glad to say that the employers' association—not the employers—has recognised that this was such a regrettable occurrence that out of its own funds it has made satisfactory payments by way of compensation or severance pay, notwithstanding that the funds have been provided by the association and not by the employers themselves. I repeat that it is very satisfactory to note that the consciences of employers are moving a long way towards acceptance of responsibility to provide severance pay when redundancy arises.
As for the trade unions, it is right that I should acknowledge the support which my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) has given to this matter with which he has associated his name very gladly, and also my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice). It is right to point out that this is an Amendment which is being moved with the support of the Front Bench and all hon. Members on the back benches on this side of the House whether or not they are members of a trade union. The Government sometimes need a little encouragement. I wish therefore to encourage them to recognise that whatever slight difficulties there may be in negotiations in different places we do not speak for different places but for the House of Commons.
All Opposition Members are agreed that there should be a redundancy scheme and that there should be severance pay.

I might even draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the fact that the tie which I am privileged to be wearing at the moment is not an Eton tie or a Guards tie. It is not even a Penrith Grammar School tie. It is the tie of the trade union to which I happen to belong, and every Member who signed the Private Member's Bill which I sought leave to introduce was also a member of that trade union. I want to make the point, therefore, that not only has opinion moved very strongly so far as employers are concerned but very strongly indeed so far as trade union members also are concerned.
As I say, therefore, the likelihood is that there will be legislation in the autumn providing for severance pay and that there will be in that legislation references to taxation. I say that because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated from the Government Front Bench that he is giving consideration to the question of taxation. This is a very relevant consideration because at the moment, as most people know, the way to receive severance pay without paying tax on it is to receive it ex gratia—that is to say, not to be entitled to receive it. Once one receives it as of right, one pays Income Tax on it. When one receives it not as a matter of right but by way of grace, one does not pay Income Tax on it. This is a ridiculous situation when one wants to provide that everybody should receive severance pay. Therefore, this is a matter which the Chancellor will have to discuss.
I quite realise that the position being as it is, one of change, and that taxation arguments weigh against departing from the ex gratia principle for the time being, it would be less than appropriate to suggest an Amendment which compelled at the present moment a notification, on the statement to be included under this Clause, of the amount of severance pay due. But that does not weigh at all against the argument, which I suggest is an overwhelming argument, namely, that the Government should have power in this subsection to add to the particulars when it is relevant and appropriate.
Having made clear that we are adding to the Government's powers and leaving it to their discretion, and in view of the


powerful statements which have been made in support of severance pay, we feel sure that this is an Amendment they will wish to accept and that they will wish to avail themselves of severance powers in the months ahead.

Mr. Whitelaw: The first thing that one must recognise is that the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) has been a pioneer in this subject. I think he is rewarded now by finding how many people are coming along, some behind him and some beside him, but, at any rate, all going in his direction. He is entitled to take credit for that.
The hon. Gentleman also, as always, has argued his case extremely persuasively. As he rightly said, these Amendments take up a point which was under discussion in Committee. The suggestion made in Committee was that an employer giving notice to an employee who has qualified for rights under Clause 1 should at the same time have to give him a statement of the kind of severance pay that would be made. My right hon. Friend undertook to consider the suggestion without commitment.
I think it only right and courteous to the hon. Gentleman to explain briefly why my right hon. Friend decided, on consideration, not to put the suggestion into effect. Indeed, I felt it right to write to the hon. Member on these lines before the Report stage. Severance payments are at the moment—we have to face the position as it stands today—made by a minority of progressive employers. Those payments are normally on an ex gratia basis and, as the hon. Member says, under our tax law this benefits the employee as they are not taxable. It seems inescapable that the requirement to provide a statement of severance pay to be made would have to be enforceable by some penal sanction for failure to comply. It seemed wrong to my right hon. Friend that progressive employers should be subject to penalties for failing to provide a written statement about a payment which they were making voluntarily.
8.30 p.m.
The Amendment departs from that basis. By it, the hon. Gentleman seeks to have stated expressly that an order under Clause 4(14) may add to the list of particulars to be given in written statements, particulars of the amount of sever-

ance pay an employer would be making. The Amendment in Clause 6, which we are discussing at the same time, would add a definition of severance pay to Clause 6 and it is clear from this that both contractual and ex gratia payments are meant to be included.
One must consider whether it would be right at this moment—I emphasise the words "at this moment"—to put this provision into the Bill. It is harmless to say that contractual terms relating to severance pay may be added to the list provided for under Clause 4(2), but, since it is already absolutely clear that orders under Clause 4(14) can cover these, there is, in fact, no need to say so. There can be no doubt about the legal position in that respect.
Moreover, it might be undesirable to say that particulars of ex gratia payments should be included in written statements under Clause 4. Clause 4(1) and (2) make perfectly clear that the particulars to be given in written statements are particulars of the terms of employment. Ex gratia benefits are by definition not part of the terms of employment. There is, therefore, no place for bringing them in under Clause 4. Clearly, there is a problem here. We must remember, also, that there are penal sanctions in Clause 4. It would be hard to justify applying them to an employer who failed to give written information about a payment he was ready to make completely voluntarily and not in fulfilment of an undertaking. There is thus a real problem in doing what, on the face of it and in furtherance of the hon. Gentleman's objective, I recognise to be desirable.
My conclusion is that, at this stage, it would be wrong to adopt either of these Amendments. The House knows that the Government are examining urgently the whole question of provision for redundancy. We shall certainly bear in mind, in the light of developments, whether it would be useful to add an item concerning provision for redundancy to the list of written particulars to be given under Clause 4 or to meet in some other way the need to ensure that workers are given a proper understanding of any benefits to which they may be entitled.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have power to add such particulars should it be considered desirable. I suggest that the right moment to decide is when we


know the exact nature of the sort of provision which will be put forward. The hon. Gentleman says that everyone agrees on the need for a provision. That is undoubtedly true. He appreciates, also, I am sure, that that is, at the moment, as far as the agreement goes. Very properly, on a complex matter, there is considerable divergence of opinion about the right sort of provision which should be made. I suggest, therefore, that we should wait and see what will be done, bearing in mind that we have power under Clause 4(14) to add the terms should we, at a later stage, decide that it was desirable.

Mr. Diamond: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the proposed Amendment refers to ex gratia payments as well as to payments which can be enforced? It refers to
the amount of the severance payment to be made by the employer.
It is "to be made". I am no lawyer, and I am asking the question. Is the hon. Gentleman quite sure that that means more than the payment literally to be made, which may be enforced, and that an ex gratia payment, which by definition is one which need not be made at all, is not excluded by the wording of the Amendment itself?

Mr. Whitelaw: In these matters, I hesitate ever to say that I am sure about anything. I must, however, call the hon. Member's attention to the Amendment in Clause 6, page 7, line 10, which states:
'"severance payment' means a payment, whether contractual or not".
Does not that mean that if it is not contractual it is an ex gratia payment? If that is so, is not an ex gratia payment therefore brought within the ambit of the Amendments? Although I cannot be absolutely sure, there is a likelihood that those words bring it within the ambit. Therefore, I consider it right to take the attitude which I have taken to the two Amendments.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 5.—(EXCLUDED CATEGORIES OF EMPLOYEES.)

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, in page 6, line 31, to leave out "or to" and to insert "in".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): With this Amendment, we can take the following one, in line 35, leave out "(2) and (3)" and insert "and (2)".

Mr. Page: Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The Clause excludes certain categories of employee from the effect of the Bill. As the Amendment is expressed in such short terms, it would be as well if I read it into the Clause so that hon. Members can see what is intended. With the Amendment, subsection (5) would read
The Minister shall have power by order—
(a) to provide that all or any of the foregoing sections of this Act shall not apply to persons in employment of such classes or descriptions as may be prescribed by the order, and
(b) to vary or revoke any of the provisions of subsections (1) and (2) of this section."
Reference to subsection (3) is omitted.
I believe I am right in saying that there was an unintentional result from an Amendment in Committee. It was agreed on both sides that the Minister should have power to take out of the Bill employees who came within statutory schemes. In subsection (1), the dock workers' scheme was referred to and subsection (2) referred to certain schemes relating to seamen. Thus, in subsections (1), (2) and (3) there were three categories of employees who were to be exempt from the effect of the Bill. The first two related to persons within statutory schemes.
The third category in subsection (3) was entirely different and comprised members of a family. Subsection (3) states:
Section 4 of this Act shall not apply where the employee is the father, mother, husband, wife, son or daughter of the employer.
As the Bill stands, the Minister is taking power to alter subsection (3). Is there any reason to give him power by order to alter the category of relatives set out in the subsection? I recognise that he should have the right to alter subsections (1) and (2) by order when new statutory schemes for workers are introduced, but what reason can there be for altering the categories in a family? This was not considered in Committee.
Subsection (5), giving the Minister power by order to do certain things, was


discussed with the addition to the Bill of the two previous subsections. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said:
It may also be that experience of the working of the Bill will bring to light changes in exclusions which are desirable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 2nd April, 1963; c. 420.]
What could be the circumstances arising which would make it desirable to say, for example, that the Bill shall not apply to the employer's mother but shall apply to all other relatives of the family; or, under paragraph (b), which says "vary or revoke", to vary "mother" to "mother-in-law" or to revoke all the relatives except the daughter of the employer? No circumstances will arise which would make it desirable to alter that Clause of the Bill in that way. It is a matter which was not considered in Committee, and I think that it was an unintentional result of these Amendments.
I suppose that I ought to be gratified if the Parliamentary Secretary says that he will look at this matter again, but, frankly. I do not want another look at it; I want acceptance of the Amendment here and now. It was obvious that in Committee this result was unintentional, and I am proposing a simple Amendment. I do not think that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary can suggest that there is anything wrong in the drafting of the Amendment. It is so extremely simple—inserting the word "in" instead of "or to" and merely altering an "and" and making it refer to two subsections instead of three.
I have said that I think that this was unintentional. When the Parliamentary Secretary was putting the Amendment, with others, in Committee the example which he used in seeking to give the Minister power to vary these subsections by order was that of the dock workers. That was the only example which he used, and the Committee was led to think that this power would relate only to the alteration in a statutory scheme for workers. It was not called to the Committee's attention that the Minister would have power not only to alter the effect of the Act on employees within certain schemes but also to alter the effect of the Act on the employer's family. I am sure that that was not intended. I have endeavoured to

remedy what I think was an unintentional result of the Amendment in Committee.

Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly not disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page); I will not say that I will look at the Amendment. Moreover, I can assure him that it was not an unexpected result. I remind him that throughout this consideration there was a considerable desire on both sides of the Committee, which has been mentioned again today in another aspect, that we should have power to vary categories, because we cannot know all the time exactly what will happen in the future. I thought that such powers were only reasonable.
The effect of the Amendment would be that an order under Clause 5 varying the scope of the Bill could be applied only to persons in particular categories of employment and not to persons defined in some other way by, for example, their relationship with the employer. Secondly, the exclusions under Clause 5(3), which provide that the requirements in respect of the written statement are not to apply where the employer and the employee are closely related, are not to be varied or revoked.
I am a little puzzled about why my hon. Friend wishes to do this. If a Minister is to have powers to vary exclusions from the Bill, I see no point in restricting them in this way. I suggest to my hon. Friend, for example, that in the light of experience it might be necessary for my right hon. Friend to expand or even, alternatively, to reduce the present list of relatives to whom Clause 4 is not to apply. He would be prevented from doing so if the Amendment were accepted, and I cannot see what sense there is in preventing him from doing something which clearly might be accepted by all sides of the House as desirable.
8.45 p.m.
I do not think that it can be suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby that there is any danger that the powers will be abused. After all, if the House agrees to the Amendment which we are about to discuss, the use of these powers will be subject to the affirmative Resolution procedure, and I would have


hoped that that would have given my hon. Friend considerable satisfaction as it is exactly what he pressed me to do. With this safeguard, there is very little reason to fear that any Minister will attempt, let alone successfully attempt, to abuse the powers to vary exclusions in their present form. I think that it is reasonable to give him power to do so when it may well be necessary in the light of subsequent developments. In those circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friend will not feel it necessary to press the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 6, line 40, to leave out from "this" to the end of line 42 and to insert:
section shall be made by statutory instrument, but no such order shall be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House".
Clause 5(5) and (6) give the Minister power to alter the scope of exclusions from the Bill by means of orders. As Clause 5(6) stands, orders of this kind are to be subject to the negative Resolution procedure. The Amendment will make them subject to an affirmative Resolution of each House instead.
We discussed this matter in Committee and I then gave an undertaking that we should consider it carefully in the light of the views of the Committee. It was clearly the general feeling of the Committee that it would not be adequate to leave Orders as important as these subject only to the negative Resolution procedure. After all, they will result in people being taken outside or brought within the scope of the Bill. I hope that on this occasion my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) will admit that I have overcome the prejudices of my past, or previous, incarnation and that I have deferred to the general view of the Committee on this matter. I hope that the House will agree that the Amendment should be adopted.

Mr. Graham Page: I think it only courteous of me to thank my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for this Amendment. It deals with a matter which was seriously discussed in Committee and it deals with it very satisfactorily. When the Minister brings forward

There is the difficulty of enforcement if a draft order extending or reducing the

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 7.—(WORK OUTSIDE GREAT BRITAIN.)

list of the family, I shall have some objections to make at that stage.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 7, line 22, to leave out from "employer" to the end of line 23.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: With this Amendment can be discussed that in page 7, line 21, to leave out "ordinarily works" and insert "has worked" although it would not be possible to have a Division on the latter.

Mr. Whitelaw: This Amendment results from an undertaking which we gave to examine the provisions of Clause 7(1), which concerns work outside Great Britain, in the light of Amendments which were put forward in Committee by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) and the discussions which ensued.
There are obviously limits to the extent to which the Bill could be applied abroad, the employment is in another country and the danger that confusion, and even conflict, might arise between what the Bill provides and what the labour laws of other countries provide. Nevertheless, I think that it is right that if a man normally works in this country but his firm sends him abroad for a spell, he should continue to be covered by the Bill during the spell abroad. We have re-examined the Bill in the light of the discussion in Committee and we think that it is desirable to make an Amendment which will, I hope, establish this beyond doubt. The condition, that if the work abroad is to count, it must not involve a change of residence, can be dropped. The effect of Clause 7(1) will therefore be that so long as the employee ordinarily works in this country, he will be covered during a spell abroad while working for the same employer.
The Amendment which we are discussing with this seeks to go much further and to apply the Bill to any employee who has worked for his employer in this country, regardless of whether he is at home or abroad. It is only fair and right briefly to point out the somewhat freak effect of this Amendment. It would


mean that if, say, a Japanese sales representative visited this country on business, he would from that point be covered by the Bill, even if he returned to Japan after his visit and continued for the rest of his life to work in Japan for the same employer. That would be a somewhat strange situation and was probably not intended.
What I take to be intended is that an employee engaged in this country by a British firm which operates a great deal abroad should be covered by the Bill all the time he is working for the firm, even though he spends most of his working life abroad. One undoubtedly has considerable sympathy with this intention, but I have grave doubts about whether it would be practicable to give effect to it.
As I have said, there are limits to the extent to which the Bill can be applied abroad. To try to apply it to people who are working abroad practically the whole time oversteps what is practicable. One must bear in mind that these people generally have rights to notice which go beyond the minima in the Bill and that it is normal for them to have written contracts. I hope that with that explanation I have been able to persuade the House that it would be right to adopt the Government Amendment without the Opposition Amendment.

Mr. Gunter: We are very grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for the diligence that he has applied to this, and I can tell him that we are very satisfied with the result of his researches. I did not know that he was going to Japan—he gets into some funny company, with lawyers, and that sort of thing—but we are grateful for the researches that he has made. I think that he has adequately covered the point which I raised in Committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that the new Schedule and the first and third Amendments thereto have already been discussed. I propose, therefore, to put the Schedule and then call for a Division on either of the Amendments if the hon. Gentleman should so desire.

New Schedule.—(RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEE IN PERIOD OF NOTICE.)

Preliminary

1.—(1) For the purposes of this Schedule the cases where there are normal working hours include cases where the employee is entitled to overtime pay when employed for more than a fixed number of hours in a week or other period, and in those cases that fixed number of hours shall be the normal working hours.

(2) In this Schedule the "period of notice" means the period of notice required by section 1(1) or, as the case may be, section 1(2) of this Act.

Employments for which there are normal working hours

2.—(1) This paragraph shall apply if there are normal working hours for the employee when employed under the contract of employment in force in the period of notice, and if during any part of those normal working hours—
(a) the employee is ready and willing to work but no work is provided for him by his employer, or
(b) the employee is incapable of work because of sickness or injury, or
(c) the employee is absent from work in accordance with the terms of his employment relating to holidays.

(2) If the employee's remuneration for employment in normal working hours, whether by the hour or week or other period, does not vary with the amount of work done, the employer shall be liable to pay the employee for the normal working hours as much as the amount which would have been payable if the employee had been employed throughout the normal working hours.

(3) If sub-paragraph 12) does not apply, the employer shall be liable for the part of he normal working hours covered by paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph to pay to the employee a sum not less than remuneration for that part of the normal working hours calculated at the average hourly rate of remuneration paid to him in respect of the period of four weeks ending with the last complete week before the notice was given.

(4) In arriving at the said average hourly rate of remuneration no account shall be taken of any period during which the employee is incapable of work because of sickness or injury or during which the employee is absent from work in accordance with the terms of his employment relating to holidays, nor of any sick pay, holiday pay or remuneration payable for, or apportionable to, that period; and if for any of the said four weeks no remuneration was payable by the employer to the employee, account shall be taken of remuneration in earlier weeks so as to bring the number of weeks of which account is taken up to four.

(5) Any payments made to the employee by his employer in respect of the relevant part of the period of notice, whether by way of sick pay, holiday pay or otherwise, shall


go towards meeting the employer's liability under this paragraph.

(6) Where the notice was given by the employee, the employer's liability under this paragraph shall not arise unless and until the employee leaves the service of the employer in pursuance of the notice.

(7) References in this paragraph to remuneration varying with the amount of work done include references to remuneration which may include any commission or similar payment which varies in amount.

Employments for which there are no normal working hours

3.—(1) This paragraph shall apply if there are no normal working hours for the employee when employed under the contract of employment in force in the period of notice.

(2) For each week of the period of notice the employer shall be liable to pay the employee a sum not less than his average weekly rate of remuneration in the period of twelve weeks ending with the last complete week before the notice was given.

(3) In arriving at the said average weekly rate of remuneration no account shall be taken of a week in which the employee worked for the employer for less than twenty-one hours; and where, as a result, the period for which the average is to be taken would be less than eight weeks, account shall be taken of remuneration in earlier weeks so as to bring the number of weeks averaged up to eight.

(4) Subject to this paragraph, the employer's obligation under this paragraph shall be conditional on the employee being ready and willing to do work of a reasonable nature and amount to earn remuneration at the rate mentioned in sub-paragraph (2).

(5) Sub-paragraph (4) shall not affect the liability of the employer—
(a) in respect of any period during which the employee is incapable of work because of sickness or injury, or
(b) in respect of any period during which the employee is absent from work in accordance with the terms of his employment relating to holidays,
and any payment made to an employee by his employer in respect of such a period, whether by way of sick pay, holiday pay or otherwise, shall be taken into account for the purposes of this paragraph as if it were remuneration paid by the employer in respect of that period.

(6) Where the notice was given by the employee, the employer's liability under this paragraph shall not arise unless and until the employee leaves the service of the employer in pursuance of the notice.

Absence on leave granted at request of employee

4. The employer shall not be liable under the foregoing provisions of this Schedule to

make any payment in respect of a period during which the employee is absent from work with the leave of the employer granted at the request of the employee.

Notice given before a strike

5. No payment shall be due under this Schedule in consequence of a notice to terminate a contract given by an employee if, on or before the termination of the contract, the employee takes part in a strike of employees of the employer.

In this paragraph "strike" has the same meaning as in Schedule 1 to this Act.

Termination of employment during period of notice

6.—(1) If before the termination of the contract in pursuance of the notice the employer breaks the contract of employment, payments received under this Schedule in respect of the period after the breach shall go towards mitigating the damages recoverable by the employee for loss of earnings in that period.

(2) If before the termination of the contract in pursuance of the notice the employee breaks the contract of employment, no payment shall be due to him under this Schedule in respect of the period after the breach.

Supplemental

7.—(1) In arriving at an average hourly rate of average weekly rate of remuneration under this Schedule—
(a) account shall be taken of work for a former employer within the period for which the average is to be taken if by virtue of paragraph 10 of Schedule 1 to this Act a period of employment with the former employer counted as part of the employee's continuous period of employment with the later employer, and
(b) "week" means, for an employee whose remuneration is calculated weekly by a week ending with a day other than Saturday, a week ending with that other day, and, for other employees, means a week ending with Saturday.

8. Where under this Schedule account is to be taken of remuneration or other payments for a period which does not coincide with the periods for which the remuneration or other payments are calculated, the remuneration or other payments shall be apportioned in such manner as may be just.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Brought up, and read the First and Second Time.

Amendment proposed: In paragraph I(1) after first "hours", insert:
together with an estimated average of hours of overtime".—[Mr. Gunter.]

Question put, That those words be there inserted in the proposed Schedule:—

The House divided: Ayes 152, Noes 199.

Division No. 106.]
AYES
[8.53 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Awbery, Stan (Bristol Central)
Barnett, Guy


Ainsley, William
Bacon, Miss Alice
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)




Beaney, Alan
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Paget, R. T.


Bence, Cyril
Hoy, James H.
Peart, Frederick


Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pentland, Norman


Blackburn, F.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Prentice, R. E.


Blyton, William
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Boardman, H.
Hunter, A. E.
Probert, Arthur


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Randall, Harry


Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics,S.W.)
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Rankin, John


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Redhead, E. C.


Brockway, A. Fenner
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Rhodes, H.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Janner, Sir Barnett
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Carmichael, Nell
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)


Cliffe, Michael
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)


Collick, Percy
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Ross, William


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Short, Edward


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Kelley, Richard
Skeffington, Arthur


Dalyell, Tam
Kenyon, Clifford
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
King, Dr. Horace
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lawson, George
Small, William


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Ledger, Ron
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Dempsey, James
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Spriggs, Leslie


Diamond, John
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Steele, Thomas


Dodds, Norman
Loughlin, Charles
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Driberg, Tom
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Stonehouse, John


Duffy, A. E. P.
McBride, N.
Stones, William


Edelman, Maurice
MacDermot, Niall
Symonds, J. B.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
McInnes, James
Taverne, D.


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Fernyhough, E.
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Fletcher, Eric
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Forman, J. C.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Manuel, Archie
Timmons, John


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mapp, Charles
Tomney, Frank


George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Marsh, Richard
Wainwright, Edwin


Ginsburg, David
Mason, Roy
Warbey, William


Gourlay, Harry
Mendelson, J. J.
Watkins, Tudor


Greenwood, Anthony
Millan, Bruce
Whitlock William


Grey, Charles
Mitchison, G. R.
Wilkins, W. A.


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Moody, A. S.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Morris, John
Williams, LI. (Abertillery)


Gunter, Ray
Mulley, Frederick
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Neal, Harold
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Hannan, William
Noel-Baker, Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby, S.)
Winterbottom, R. E.


Harper, Joseph
Oliver, G. H.
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Hayman, F. H.
O'Malley, B. K.



Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Oram, A. E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Holman, Percy
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. Charles A. Howell and


Houghton, Douglas
Owen, Will
Mr. McCann.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Goodhew, Victor


Allason, James
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Gower, Raymond


Atkins, Humphrey
Cordle, John
Grant-Ferris, R.


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Corfield, F. V.
Gresham Cooke, R.


Barlow, Sir John
Costain, A. P.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.


Batsford, Brian
Coulson, Michael
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)


Banter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)
Craddock Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Harris, Reader (Heston)


Berkeley, Humphry
Crawley, Aidan
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Currie, G. B. H.
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)


Biffen, John
Dance, James
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Bingham, R. M.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Hastings, Stephen


Bishop, F. P.
de Ferranti, Basil
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel


Black, Sir Cyril
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Bossom, Hon. Clive
Drayson, G. B.
Hendry, Forbes


Bourne-Arton, A.
du Cann, Edward
Hiley, Joseph


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Duncan, Sir James
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)


Box, Donald
Eden, John
Hirst, Geoffrey


Brewis, John
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Hocking, Philip N.


Bryan, Paul
Elliott,R.W.(Newc'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
Holland, Philip


Buck, Antony
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Hollingworth, John


Bullard, Denys
Errington, Sir Eric
Hooson, H. E.


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Hornby, R. P.


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Fell, Anthony
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.


Cary, Sir Robert
Finlay, Graeme
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Hughes-Young, Michael


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Gammans, Lady
Hulbert, Sir Norman


Clarke, Brig. Terence(Portsmth, W.)
Gibson-Watt, David
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Cleaver, Leonard
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Cole, Norman
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
James, David


Cooper, A. E.
Goodhart, Philip
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)







Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Studholme, Sir Henry


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Summers, Sir Spencer


Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Teeling, Sir William


Kershaw, Anthony
Peel, John
Temple, John M.


Kirk, Peter
Percival, Ian
Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)


Kitson, Timothy
Peyton, John
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Thorpe, Jeremy


Leavey, J. A.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Pilkington, Sir Richard
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Lilley, F. J. P.
Pitt, Dame Edith
Turner, Colin


Lindsay, Sir Martin
Pott, Percivall
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Litchfield, Capt. John
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Longbottom, Charles
Prior, J. M. L.
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Lubbock, Eric
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Vane, W. M. F.


MacArthur, Ian
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John


McLaren, Martin
Ramsden, James
Wade, Donald


McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Rawlinson, Sir Peter
Walder, David


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute&amp;N.Ayrs)
Hedmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Walker, Peter


Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Rees, Hugh
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Renton, Rt. Hon. David
Wall, Patrick


McMaster, Stanley R.
Ridsdale, Julian
Ward, Dame Irene


Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Whitelaw, William


Macpherson, Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries)
Roots, William
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Maginnis, John E.
Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Markham, Major Sir Frank
Russell, Ronald
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Marten, Neil
St. Clair, M.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Mawby, Ray
Sharples, Richard
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Shaw, M.
Woodhouse, C. M.


Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Shepherd, William
Woodnutt, Mark


Mills, Stratton
Skeet, T. H. H.
Woollam, John


Miscampbell, Norman
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)
Worsley, Marcus


Montgomery, Fergus
Speir, Rupert



More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Stevens, Geoffrey
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Morgan, William
Stodart, J. A.
Mr. Gordon Campbell and


Neave, Airey
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Mr. Pym.


Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Storey, Sir Samuel

Schedule added to the Bill.

Schedule 1.—(COMPUTATION OF PERIOD OF EMPLOYMENT.)

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, in page 8, line 6, at the end to insert:
and the periods of two and five years mentioned in section 1 of this Act shall be taken as 104 and 260 weeks respectively".
The Amendment fulfils an undertaking which my right hon. Friend gave in Committee to remove a possible source of misunderstanding in the Bill as now drafted, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers) had drawn attention.
In the first place, since in Clause 1 the qualifying periods of employment for two weeks' and four weeks' notice are reckoned in years, whereas under Schedule 1 periods of employment are calculated in weeks, one is left with the problem of deciding how to treat fractions of weeks. Moreover, under the rules some weeks may not count towards the qualifying period of employment, so that two calendar years after he is engaged an employee may still not have qualified under the Bill for two weeks' notice. The Amendment will expand paragraph 1(1) so as to make it

quite clear how many weeks of employment which count under the rules have to elapse before the employee has qualified.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said that many workers will never read the Bill, but will assume that they are getting rights after two or five calender years—or, as a result of an Amendment accepted today, six months; he suggested that they might not realise that they may not get these rights so soon if there are some weeks which do not count. In the great majority of cases this will not matter, because it will not become of practical importance. What is essential is that if it does become of practical importance, and uncertainty arises, it should be possible to decide whether a certain employee has qualified or not by reference to the Bill. The Amendment ensures this.
I should also point out that the Ministry of Labour will have to prepare a leaflet explaining in simple terms how the Bill works. The opportunity could be taken to explain the position fully, and so ensure that it is generally understood. With this explanation, I hope that the House will be willing to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 8, line 27, leave out "working" and insert "employment".

In page 10, line 45, leave out "worked by" and insert "of employment of".

In page 11, line 1, leave out Schedule 2.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Whitelaw: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
This Bill marks a departure from our traditional approach to industrial relations whereby terms and conditions are settled voluntarily by industry itself. When a Bill is breaking new ground, there is obviously going to be room for improvement in the light of discussion and debate. Against this background I think that it can be said that this Bill has been much improved during its passage through the House. I make no apology for that, for surely it is one of the purposes of Parliament. Rather, I wish to thank, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, all hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee for their helpful and constructive contributions. I should also like to add my personal thanks to hon. Members for their kindness to me, perhaps particularly today during my right hon. Friend's unfortunate absence.
It is true that this Bill has the limited purpose of giving greater security through longer notice, and a written statement to each employee of his terms and conditions of service. Nevertheless, it does thereby benefit many millions of workers. Its value has been widely recognised. A remark by the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) during the Committee stage discussions leads me to embark on a quotation—something unusual for me.
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer
For did not the hon. and learned Member himself say on 5th March:
In the Bill we see the germ of something which may be good arid useful in our law"?—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 5th March, 1963; c. 8.]
But this Bill cannot be considered on its own. It takes its place alongside our plans for industrial training and the proposals that we shall make regarding redundancy as part of the Government's

policies to enable men and women to face industrial change with confidence and achieve our aims of economic growth. It provides yet further evidence of the positive approach to better industrial relations which is being increasingly recognised as the outstanding contribution of my right hon. Friend as Minister of Labour. My only regret today is that he is not here personally to complete this further stage of his planned advance.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Gunter: I want, in the first place, to say on behalf of my hon. and right hon. Friends how much we regret the absence of the Minister today and that we hope he will soon be fully recovered. I also congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his performance today. I stood in some awe of his containing capacity, which seemed unlimited. We were grateful when the Divisions came to help him out.
The Committee stage of this Bill was a very happy experience. Not for the first time Her Majesty's Opposition rescued the Government from their own back benchers on occasion. Nevertheless, I thought it a very fruitful Committee. I am happy to join with the Parliamentary Secretary in saying that this is a somewhat different Bill now before us from what it was before. I find it more cuddly than the skinny little thing with which we started. In Committee we managed to put some cover on the dry bones, not a lot, but nevertheless we covered the dry bones with something.
I am afraid that I cannot share the Parliamentary Secretary's great enthusiasm because, frankly, even now I do not think that it is of the major importance that the Government have attached to it. I think the Parliamentary Secretary and all hon. Members who were on, the Committee would agree that legislation dealing with industrial relations is very complex and complicated. The legislation has to be well thought out before we enter this field where the old Adam is still very much uppermost in men. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, often we cannot legislate against the tempers and sometimes irrationality of men. Nevertheless, this has been a first exercise. I am still persuaded, as I said on Second Reading, that the better course in the long run is for industry to come to terms with itself rather than


to have legislation even of what to my mind is—I do not say this unkindly—of a somewhat trivial character.
In our discussions this afternoon we have excluded from the "little bit of paper" to which I referred the casual workers, and on the whole the vast majority of workers in Britain, even after this Bill becomes law, will have nothing more than a slip of paper giving the date on which their employment started. They will be directed to an accessible document.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: And a longer period of notice.

Mr. Gunter: That is not in itself entirely true. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) knows as well as I do that the most advanced employers are today doing this very thing. Anyway, in this period of courtesies, do not let us start that argument.
I still feel that it is in the field of radical alteration of the structure of the unions and their methods and outlook and of the methods and outlook of the employers in their federations that the final answer will be found. I hope that the efforts which the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are making—I pay this tribute to them—in industry outside of legislation will bring a greater harvest than will this Bill. Nevertheless, on behalf of the Opposition I say that we enjoyed the exercise upstairs in Committee. For the good humour, the tolerance and the kindliness shown all round, we were grateful. We may still have another go in another place on some points, but, nevertheless, I say "Thank you" to the Parliamentary Secretary.

9.14 p.m.

Mr. Renton: I wish to endorse the tribute paid to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. He has excelled himself on this Bill. From the drafting point of view it was not an easy Bill. He had to display great clarity of mind as well as great patience. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that he has done his work excellently well.
I, too, wish to say how sorry I am that the Minister is not with us because his is the inspiration behind the Bill. I was

surprised to hear the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) describe this as a trivial matter. Surely it cannot be a trivial matter when a Bill is designed to impose upon everybody the standards of the best. That is what the Bill does.
I understand that some small employers are worried—not greatly worried, but worried to some extent—about the further obligations of administration which the Bill imposes upon them. They should recognise that as our society develops everybody should be prepared to accept higher standards of administration and higher standards—ever higher standards year by year—in labour relations. I hope that on reflection those small employers, as they call themselves, who have had doubts about the Bill will feel that in the long run it is not only right but may well be in their own interests. I regard the Bill as a symptom of the further development of our civilised society. I will leave it at that.
I want to mention one point of detail. On Second Reading I was one of several hon. Members on his side of the House who felt that Clause 4, as it then stood, was not well applicable to casual temporary and part-time workers. The Government have given great thought to this matter. My feeling is that the Amendments which have been made today have made the position far more satisfactory, and we should acknowledge that in relation to those workers the Bill is now a workable and practicable Measure. For that I am very grateful to the Government.

9.16 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: Following the courtesies of the occasion, perhaps I should say a kindly word to the Parliamentary Secretary. The trouble is that he may be receiving too much praise. Like a good Scotsman, he becomes a little cautious when people praise him overmuch and he begins to wonder what is behind it. However, I admired the way that he handled the Committee proceedings from time to time in the absence of the senior Minister. I congratulate him on doing so much to put the Bill through its Committee stage.
The right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) somewhat misrepresented my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter)


when he quoted him as saying that this was a trival matter. I do not think that those were my hon. Friend's exact words. Although we on this side welcome the Bill, we regard it as a sort of trivial Bill. That is a somewhat different matter. It is trivial in the respect that the Bill gives legislative sanction to something that is already being done. There is nothing new from that point of view. It brings in more people than were covered before. As the Parliamentary Secretary said, many millions are within the scope of the Bill who were not covered before. The weakness of this Measure is that many millions who should be covered by it are still without any protection. Far too many people are outside the Bill.
I noted that when the Parliamentary Secretary moved the Motion he said that another step lies before us and that in due course we should have proposals for redundancy from the Government. This matter of redundancy and severance pay was frequently aired in Committee. I take it that what we have had tonight is a solemn and official promise from the Government that proposals for severance pay are now under consideration and will in due course be presented as a Government Measure covering this very important and vast topic.

Mr. Whitelaw: I must point out that nothing I say in any way detracts from, adds to or does anything else in regard to what was said by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this subject. He said that legislation would be introduced in the autumn if necessary. That is what he said and the hon. Member must not put words into my mouth and expand his speech on them.

Mr. Rankin: Already we have qualifications. The Chancellor of the Exchequer used the phrase "if necessary", and that in a qualification. When speaking tonight the Parliamentary Secretary did not use that phase, but said that proposals would be made for redundancy. That statement was quite unqualified and I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going back on his words, because my hon. Friends and I are expecting that in due course the Government will face this big issue of severance pay.
That was the important problem on my mind, but knowing that hon. Members would rather I did not delay the House

for too long I will say no more on that subject. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] If there is to be implied encouragement for me to continue I am perfectly willing to accept it, although I know that, at any rate my hon. Friends are anxious to get on to another Measure—the Local Employment Bill. As, it would seem, my hon. Friends are cheering me, apparently urging me to continue—although the cheers from hon. Members opposite are, I think, for another purpose—I am rather between the devil and the deep blue sea, so I think that I had better resume my seat; but not before again congratulating the Parliamentary Secretary and assuring him that I have noted with great approval the statement he made about severance pay.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. Shepherd: I intend to be brief and not to detain the House for even as long as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin).

Mr. Rankin: I did not detain the House for long.

Mr. Shepherd: True, and the hon. Member's brevity was certainly unusual.
It is probably true that in some particular this is a trivial Bill, although its significance is, nevertheless, considerable. It is trivial because it is very difficult to get agreement from large organisations, whether confederations of employers or trade unions, on what would be the most progressive attitude displayed by individual members of those organisations. It is probably just as difficult for Governments to get some of their back benchers to agree on some of the more progressive ideas they have in their minds.
Despite this, it is a Bill of significance in that it shows that we are attempting to give some sort of security to men in their jobs. Security to people in their jobs, including the dignity which goes with it in their employment, is a vital factor. Bad behaviour in human life springs more from insecurity than from any other single factor; and, if the Bill does even a small part in giving some idea of security to the majority of workers, it will have served a worth while purpose.
The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) was absolutely right when he said that the real task lies outside that of legislation. To get all the recalcitrant


elements in the trade unions and employers' organisations together in policy that is progressive is an almost impossible task. Nevertheless, we are doing it slowly and tomorrow a bad employer can turn himself into a good one. He can become the leader in his field. He can do his job in terms of management and human relations tomorrow much better than he might be doing it today; and if tomorrow, as a result of the Bill in part and the efforts of people inside and outside Parliament, we get a new spirit among employers, with them giving a lead, then we shall be seeing in the next year or so some substantial results. If the hon. Member for Southwark and his hon. Friends can get some of their colleagues in the trade union movement to come along in this direction, too, we will be well on the way to achieving something much better.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. Tom Brown: It is not my desire to strike a discordant note in this harmonious atmosphere, but I was struck by the Parliamentary Secretary's remark, when moving the Third Reading of this Bill, that it would be the duty of his right hon. Friend to prepare a leaflet explaining to the unemployed person how the Measure worked. I have made the plea before, and I make it again with the same seriousness as hitherto, that the leaflet should be worded as simply as possible so that the person reading it can understand it.
The unemployed person pays his contribution to be given some security when he is unemployed but, when he is presented with regulations, he very often cannot understand them and has to seek the assistance of his trade union secretary. For many years it was my job, on behalf of the National Union of Mineworkers, to interpret the regulations. The Minister has in his Department trained men who can so simplify the regulations as to make them easily understood. I hope that some attention will be given to what I call the simplicity of the regulations which govern the payment of the unfortunate unemployed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

LOCAL EMPLOYMENT BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

9.27 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The object of the Bill is to implement the proposals made in the Budget that standard grants should be introduced under the Local Employment Act. During the course of the Budget debate, in Committee of Ways and Means, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade explained at some length the reasons that had led the Government to propose the introduction of standard grants, and how they intend that they should be administered. My task now is to explain the Bill. My right hon. Friend will wind up this debate, if he succeeds in catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, and will then endeavour to reply to any additional points that may be made by hon. Members.
The broad purpose of the Bill is, by the introduction of standard grants, to improve the facilities already available to industrialists under the Local Employment Act, 1960, The House will recall that the purpose of the principal Act is the promotion of employment in localities within Great Britain in which, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, high and persistent unemployment exists or is threatened. To that end, the Board of Trade is empowered to offer assistance to projects that are likely to provide additional employment in such localities which, in the language of the Act, we call "development districts."
This is "the policy of inducement" which is the necessary complement to a tough I.D.C. policy. The latter can prevent firms setting up in over-congested areas, but cannot, of itself, oblige them to establish their factories in areas where they would not normally choose to go. But properly devised inducements can.
Let me remind the House of the various forms of current inducements to an industrialist under the 1960 Act. The Board of Trade may itself build factories either for rent or sale to industrialists—that power is contained in Section 2.


It may offer grants to firms that prefer to build their own factories—Section 3—and it can make loans or grants for either case for the general purpose of the undertaking in question—Section 4.
Generally speaking, these provisions have worked well. As my right hon. Friend explained during the Budget debate, the Local Employment Act has achieved considerable success in attracting new industries to development districts and encouraging the expansion of local firms, and thus creating additional employment in the development districts which would not otherwise have been created. During the course of his remarks, my right hon. Friend gave some figures, which I shall not repeat.
Nevertheless, the Government are determined to improve further the inducements to create more employment in the development districts. Furthermore, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out in his Budget statement, it has been suggested that it would help firms considering setting up or considering expanding in development districts if they could be given in advance some more precise indication of the financial assistance that would be available to them. Therefore, the Government have decided to increase the inducements to firms that are prepared either to establish themselves in a development district or to expand in a development district, and also to change the form of the inducements to that of standard grants.
Thus, under the Bill, a new form of assistance is to be offered—a standard grant of 10 per cent. towards the cost of buying and installing plant and machinery, while the basis of calculation of the building grant is to be changed so as to make it a standard proportion of the building costs.
Under the 1960 Act, the grant available to firms providing their own premises is set at 85 per cent. of the difference between the estimated cost of a suitable building of the size required and its current market value. The intention behind this formula, as explained by the then President of the Board of Trade in his speech on Second Reading of the 1960 Act, was to apply the same principle to assisting people to build their own factories as applied to the renting of Government factories, but experience

has shown that this provision has two defects.
First, the rate of grant has varied widely according to local values, though overall it has averaged about 17 per cent. Secondly, the basing of the grant on the difference between two estimates has meant that a prospective developer could not be given at the outset any reliable indication of how much assistance he would receive. He has had to wait until his building plans and specifications have been examined by the technical advisers in the Ministry of Public Building and Works and the current market value assessed by the district valuer before he could know the amount of the grant for which he would be eligible.
The fixed rate of grant, of 25 per cent., removes both these disadvantages. It will be on average considerably larger—about 50 per cent.—than the grants at present given and, equally important, it will be known from the start. This predictability will be particularly helpful to all firms, but especially to overseas firms who may be considering setting up in Britain and who at present have no easy way of comparing in advance the assistance which this country could offer with the more precise forms of assistance said to be available in some other European countries. I will not now weary the House with comparisons with other countries.
Since the grant for plant and machinery is also at a fixed rate the standard grants provided by the Bill will go a long way to provide certainty, and at the same time to raise the general level of assistance which will be available by way of grant.
I do not wish to detain the House too long, but I should like to explain the contents of the Bill in a little detail. Clause 1 gives a new power to the Board of Trade to make grants towards the cost of plant and machinery to be installed in industrial undertakings where this will serve the purpose of the principal Act, namely by providing employment for the benefit of the development districts. The grant is fixed at 10 per cent. of the cost to the applicant of acquiring and installing the machinery or plant. Since the grant may be made only for the purpose of providing employment, and conversely for preventing unemployment—and this is an element in the Act which some people


forget—it is not available for simple replacement of existing plant and machinery. Unlike the other benefits of the local employment Act which are available to non-industrial undertakings, such as shops, offices and hotels, the plant and machinery grant is limited to industrial undertakings as defined in Section 21 of the 1960 Act.
This avoids the risk of abuse which otherwise might arise, since most kinds of "plant and machinery" required for commercial undertakings are easily moved, for instance, beds, cash registers or typewriters, so that they could be bought for firms in development districts and subsequently moved elsewhere. Also to avoid abuse it is proposed by administrative action to exclude items such as vehicles and office machinery which equally could be moved easily from a development district. Clause 1(2) provides that the Board may make a grant where it considers it expedient to do so, and as a matter of expediency, such items will be excluded. This limitation to industrial undertakings and the exclusion of readily moveable items are in line with the limitations which will apply to the "free depreciation" scheme which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement and which hon. Members can see in the draft Finance Bill. The Bill does not require the Board to consult B.O.T.A.C. before making the plant and machinery grant. The Board will, however, continue to consult B.O.T.A.C. in the larger cases where, and only where, we have no other ready means of ascertaining the standing of the firm and of the particular project. This is a sort of long-stop position.
Moreover, subsection (2) of Clause 1 requires the Board to impose such conditions as it thinks fit for securing that the machinery or plant will continue to serve the purposes of the Act, and these conditions may include conditions for repayment in certain circumstances. There is a similar provision in the 1960 Act in relation to building grants. The conditions imposed in the building grant agreements enable the Board to claim repayment of the grant on a descending scale if the firm should dispose of the building or cease to carry on the undertaking within a period of five years

after completion of the building. This is clearly a prudent safeguard to take against a misuse of public moneys, though in the three years for which the Act has been in operation we have only had to invoke this right of recovery on one occasion.
It is intended to include in the agreements relating to grants for plant and machinery certain conditions for the recovery of grant in whole or in part on any items which cease to be used for the purpose for which the grant is paid. This would cover not only cases where the firm ceased to carry on the undertaking but also disposals of plant and machinery on which grant had been paid, or transfers of plant and machinery outside the development district.
The grant will apply to expenditure incurred in the purchase and installation of plant and machinery on or after 3rd April, 1963. This is to avoid the hiatus which would otherwise arise, to the detriment of development districts, from firms delaying their applications until the Bill had received the Royal Assent.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On the question of the date 3rd April, is there any significance in the fact that sub-paragraph (b) of the Money Resolution, which has been printed but for which I gather approval is not being sought tonight, states that the grant would not be made if "an offer" was made before 3rd April? I have in mind such a case in which a letter went from the hon. Gentleman's Department on 1st April stating terms which were not necessarily accepted by the firm. Would such a letter constitute an offer which would prevent the firm getting the new grant? If that is so, I hope there would not be any objection to an Amendment being moved in Committee, despite the existence of this Money Resolution.

Mr. Price: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that one would have to go into the case in detail. Broadly speaking, the Money Resolution means what it says. This is exactly the same as any tax change. There is a date from which a tax is reduced, and if an obligation is incurred before that date one pays at the previous rate. Similarly, there is to be a moment of time and all offers made before that time get the benefit of the older financial system, whereas every


offer after that time gets the higher one. As to the detail of what constitutes an offer, I am not prepared, in answer to a general question, to give a definite ruling. Indeed, I am always reluctant on a legal point to give a definitive ruling, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to take up this matter in detail I should be happy to answer it.
As I was saying, although it will not be possible to make a firm offer of grant until the Bill becomes law, firms are invited meanwhile to submit provisional applications so that they can be advised as soon as possible as to their eligibility for grant and enabled to proceed with their project without delay. Imported plant and machinery will be eligible for the grant, but where relief of duty is granted under the Import Duties Act, 1958, the grant will be payable on the price exclusive of duty. In submitting claims for payment, applicants will be required to list all items of imported plant and machinery with import particulars and details of applications for refund of duty, or alternatively to declare that the claim does not include any imported plant and machinery.

Mr. H. Rhodes: Will second-hand machinery be included?

Mr. Price: The hon. Gentleman anticipates me by a minute. That is almost the next thing I was coming to.
Applications may be made in respect of plant and machinery bought on hire purchase, but the cost of credit or hire-purchase charges will be excluded from the cost for the calculation of the grant.
Now, the question asked by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes). Second-hand plant and machinery will be eligible for grant, but this is a field in which, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman appreciates, there is much scope for abuse, so we need to establish certain fairly closely defined safeguards to prevent abuse. Grants will be payable on the net cost after taking into account cash discounts or any other debates or allowances. The proper cost of the installation also will be allowed.
In the administration of the new grant, our aim will be to facilitate a project which will improve employment prospects for the development districts but, at the

same time, to avoid the reckless expenditure of public money.
Now, Clause 2, building grants. This replaces the formula laid down in Section 3(2) of the 1960 Act, which deals with the calculation of building grant, namely, 85 per cent. of the amount by which the estimated cost of a reasonably suitable building of the size required by the applicant exceeds its current market value. Clause 2 will now provide instead for grants to be made at the fixed rate of 25 per cent. of the actual cost of the building to the applicant.
The House will see that in Clause 2(2) there is provision for the exclusion of expenditure which, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, exceeds that which is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which the building is required. This will enable the Board of Trade to exclude from the calculation for grant any frills or unnecessary extravagances which it would not be right that public funds should meet. For instance, if an applicant wanted a goldfish pond in the entrance hall of his factory, he would not get a grant towards it, or if he wanted a parquet floor where a plain deal floor would suffice, the cost would be limited to the cost of the deal floor. Subject to this, an applicant would know from the start that he would obtain a grant of 25 per cent. of the actual cost of the eligible project.
The Clause provides for grant towards the cost of providing a new building, a new extension to an existing building or the adaptation of an existing building. The Bill does not in any way vary the eligibility for building grant as laid down under the 1960 Act.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton: My hon. Friend told the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) that Clause 1 applies to second-hand machinery. Does Clause 2 apply to second-hand buildings?

Mr. Price: No, it does not.

Mr. William Ross: There is adaptation.

Mr. Price: Towards the cost of adaptation, yes, but an old building in its old form would not be eligible for grant.
In administering the building grant we do not insist that the industrialist


should employ the building contractor as for himself; if he builds through the agency of a local authority, for instance, we should consider him to be providing the building. The question is whether or not the building is to be built to the order of a known occupier. I repeat that this is nothing new. The Bill is not changing in any way Section 3(1) of the 1960 Act which prescribes the circumstances in which grant is available. What the Bill does is to alter and improve the method of ascertaining the amount of grant.
The Board of Trade will also exclude from the cost of providing a building the cost of the site. The cost of the site already reflects the lower market value in a development district. The intention is to include in the cost of providing a building the cost to the firm of site preparation, the installation of equipment for providing essential services such as water, sewerage and electricity, and reasonable amenities such as car parks. Fixtures such as electrical installations, ventilation and heating equipment, which are essentially parts of the building itself, and special foundations for heavy plant will also be regarded as part of the building.
Clause 2(4) provides that offers of building grant made before 3rd April are not affected by the change—this relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls)—but all future offers will be determined in accordance with the new provisions in respect of applications made before as well as after the passing of the Act. This means that industry will not have to hold up its plans until the Bill is passed but will be able to apply immediately and know that if a project is judged eligible for grant it will receive 25 per cent. of the cost if and when the Bill becomes law. It also means that applications made before 3rd April but in respect of which no offer had at that time been made will now be dealt with under the new arrangements.

Sir H. Nicholls: Is an offer likely to constitute a letter from one side only which is not accepted by the recipient of the letter? This is worth bearing in mind, although my hon. Friend may not be able to give an answer now.

Mr. Price: Having been at this Box,

my hon. Friend knows that I cannot be expected to give an answer off the cuff, but I will write to him about it.
There has to be a dividing line at some stage between the new and the old arrangements. The stage of offer of grant seems to us to be the most equitable. It is relevant to point out that the power of the Board of Trade under Section 4 of the 1960 Act to offer financial assistance as recommended by B.O.T.A.C. for the general purposes of the undertaking will remain available subject to a cost per job consideration. B.O.T.A.C. assistance will be available in addition to the standard grants proposed in the Bill.
I will say a brief word about the cost per job. Under the 1960 Act, the Board of Trade are required to have regard to the employment provided in relation to the expenditure incurred. The expenditure relates to the total assistance offered under the various sections of the Act to an individual project. This requirement of the principal Act remains unaltered by the Bill. The reference is Section 1(3, a).
In administering the Act, we have no hard, precisely-defined figure of cost per job which represents a ceiling on the maximum amount of assistance for any project. What is reasonable must depend upon the facts in each case. It is obviously affected by such factors as the normal ratio of capital to labour in the industry concerned, the remoteness of the area, the difficulty of attracting new industry there, and so on. We must not, and will not, adopt too rigid an attitude to cost per job. Broadly, it is bur intention that with the exception, possibly, of extremely capital-intensive projects—for example, an oil refinery—any ceiling which the Board has to impose in accordance with this provision would be high enough to accommodate the new standard benefits. In the majority of cases, there should also be room for loans and grants under Section 4 of the principal Act, as at present.
Clause 3 extends the provision in the 1960 Act which enables the Board of Trade to complete work in progress at the time when a locality ceased to be a development district. The amendment made by Clause 3 will enable the Board to proceed where work has not yet begun


but where agreements have been entered into. The effect will be that factory building by the Board will be put on the same basis as financial assistance. Such assistance can be given after the locality has ceased to be a development district, provided that offers had been made before that time. Clause 4 is a standard form provision enabling expenditure to be defrayed out of the Department's vote and requiring receipts to be paid into the Exchequer. Clauses 3 and 4 are relatively minor.
The main purpose of the Bill is to provide the standard grants. The grant for plant and machinery is, hon. Members will recognise, entirely new. The building grant will be more generous than in the past. Above all, the standard grants will be predictable. In common with the financial inducements provided by the 1960 Act, these new inducements are available for the purpose of assisting employment whether by creating new jobs or, alternatively, avoiding unemployment in existing industry in development districts. Inasmuch as these grants are required to have a direct relationship to the employment created or preserved they differ from the free depreciation concessions introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer which are available for new plant and machinery in development districts irrespective of the employment created.
We are satisfied that, taken together, these provisions will provide a powerful new incentive both to firms already in development districts and to others which we hope will move into development districts. Indeed, the initial response from industry has been very encouraging. The House, I am sure, will be glad to hear that within the last three weeks the Board of Trade has received sixty applications for loans and building grants and forty provisional applications for building grants or plant and machinery grants or both.
This is double the rate at which we were receiving applications earlier in the year, and it demonstrates in a practical way that the aims of the Bill have already recommended themselves to industry. I feel sure that, likewise, the Bill will recommend itself to the House and that the House will give the Bill its undivided support.

9.51 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: It is deplorable that it should have needed unemployment at over 900,000 and a great deal of agitation in the House and elsewhere to extract even this rather meagre death-bed repentance from the Government. Let it not be forgotten that there were still 645,000 unemployed in the United Kingdom in April, which is a great many more than there were even last December.
Of course, any action to help the under-employed areas is extremely welcome, and it might, therefore, be said that we should not look any gift horse in the mouth. But it is the job of the House to look even gift horses in the mouth, and I must therefore warn some hon. Members who may not have studied the Bill or the preceding Act very carefully against assuming too readily that the Bill represents anything like the substantial advance which the Government are trying to make out. I am very doubtful, as I shall try to show, whether the Bill gives the Government any substantial powers which they do not already have under existing legislation.
We are becoming rather depressingly familiar with the pattern of the Government's behaviour in this field. First, they fail to use the existing powers on the Statute Book while protesting that no more are necessary. As a result of this, unemployment grows worse. Then, in response to prolonged demands for action, they produce, usually before an election and with a great flourish of publicity, a further Bill which, when carefully examined, does very little more than give the Government again, but in a slightly rehashed form, the powers which they already have and which they have not been using. After the election, of course, we find that the new powers are not used, either. That is substantially the record of the Government's use of both the 1945 and the 1960 Acts up to date, and it therefore makes me a little sceptical in my approach to the Bill.
There is another point which rather adds to that scepticism. The Board of Trade, while preparing the Bill, published its estimates for the public moneys which it proposes to spend on these purposes in the present financial year. Those estimates show a reduction in the total of the expenditure on loans and grants of all kinds from £41 million in


the past financial year to £24 million in the financial year now before us. I have three times asked Board of Trade Ministers what this means and whether the present estimates still stand despite the Bill, and so far I have received no intelligible answer. If for the fourth time tonight we are given no information, I am afraid that we shall be compelled to conclude that once again, underneath all this protestation and a slight alteration in legal form the Government's intention is to spend less and not more money than before. If that is not so, may we be told what is the amended estimate, as presumably the Board of Trade attaches some importance to the estimates which it puts before the House?
Another part of the story which makes me a little sceptical is the Government's behaviour over expenditure on clearing derelict sites. The 1945 Act gave the Board of Trade power first to clear derelict sites and, secondly, to offer grants to local authorities. It was always contemplated that the Board of Trade, working through the industrial estate companies, would do the main part of this job, but the Government have tried in every sort of way to smother the very memory that the Board of Trade has power to do this job by suggesting that it was really for the local authorities to do it. Indeed, it needed the worst winter of unemployment since the war, in the past year, to induce the Government to offer slightly higher grants to local authorities to do a job which they had had full power to do themselves already.
I may say in passing that another reason which makes me a bit sceptical is that, in spite of all these arguments and this winter of unemployment, the Government have still not even scheduled the whole of the North-East Coast as a development district.

Dame Irene Ward: Hear, Hear.

Mr. Jay: I am glad to see the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) here. We have the extraordinary situation that the north bank of the Tyne is excluded while the south bank of the Tyne is included, so that Parsons on the north bank is ineligible for all the depreciation allowances and so on, while Reyrolle's on the south

bank is eligible. I doubt whether this situation can continue much longer.
Let us examine with that amount of scepticism how far the Bill really increases the Board of Trade's powers to make loans and grants to industrial firms. Tonight, the Parliamentary Secretary sounded as though he was not very clear about the powers which have existed hitherto. Let us look first at Section 4 of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, the D.A.T.A.C. Section of that Act. In it, the Government were given power to make loans and grants to firms setting up in development areas—not just loans. The Section said:
The Treasury may, in accordance with recommendations of an advisory committee appointed by them, agree with any person carrying on … in a development area an … undertaking … to give financial assistance to the carrying on of the undertaking …
(a) by making annual grants to the said person, either towards the cost of paying interest on moneys borrowed … for the purposes of the undertaking or generally for those purposes".
That, incidentally, would have provided the powers which the Government needed for the Wiggins Teape plan without any further legislation.
Quite apart from that, it gave the Government power, without any limit on the amount, to make annual grants—I agree that they were annual—for the general purposes of undertakings in development areas, provided only that D.A.T.A.C. agreed that the purposes of the Act were advanced and that the firm was reasonably solvent. The grants had to be annual, but that need not have been a serious obstacle to giving the assistance needed, and the wording of the original Act could easily have been amended, as it was in the 1960 Act.
Quite apart from Section 3, which introduced the so-called building grants, the 1960 Act also included the amended D.A.T.A.C., now B.O.T.A.C., Section 4, which said that where the purposes of the Act were furthered and the firm had reasonably good prospects,
the Board may agree with the person carrying on, or proposing to carry on, the undertaking to make loans or grants for the purposes of the undertaking of such amounts and en such terms and conditions as may be recommended by the advisory committee …".
When the Parliamentary Secretary quoted that, he used the word, "For the


general purposes of the undertaking." He was not right. The 1960 Act did not include the word "general" but simply the phrase
for the purposes of the undertaking".
Hardly anything can be wider than that.
This is the law now and it has been the law for the past three years. This provision, as the Parliamentary Secretary rightly said, remains unrepealed in the present Bill, if it goes through in its present form. It gives the Board of Trade power, unless the words do not mean even broadly what they would appear to mean, to make not merely loans, but grants for building, for machinery and for plant, or for just plain subsidies, if it wishes to do so, towards running costs, without limit to the amount, provided that the firm is solvent and likely to be viable and that B.O.T.A.C. approves and that the general purposes of the Act are furthered.
In his speech in the debate on the Budget, the President of the Board of Trade himself got this wrong.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Erroll.]

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mr. Jay: We are debating this Bill at a rather unusual hour. I was saying that the President of the Board of Trade on 4th April in the Budget debate, at col. 660, said that hitherto the B.O.T.A.C. loans had been the only means by which we could help with the cost of plant and machinery. He forgot the grants, of course, because the 1960 Act said "grants and loans". This was a direct misrepresentation of the situation, although, rather quaintly, a few minutes later, in the same speech, he said:
… B.O.T.A.C. loans and grants under Section 4 of the Act will still be available …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1963; Vol. 675, c. 660.]
I cannot believe that when the President made that speech he had fully realised what his existing powers were. I do not know whether the Government will argue that all this is necessary because the previous Section 4 was no good on the ground that B.O.T.A.C. had to be consulted. Of course, the

D.A.T.A.C. Section in the 1945 Act, continued in the 1960 Act, was intended as a general wide power for the Government to give grants and loans. It was not supposed to be somehow sterilised and paralysed because the Government had to consult its own Advisory Committee. Indeed, it would be an extraordinary state of affairs if the Government, having set up its own Advisory Committee to which it could itself give instructions, then found that it had to legislate in order to get round the obstruction of its own Committee.
The original purpose of the Advisory Committee was to protect the Government against unsound firms and to give a business view whether a particular firm was likely to be successful. In both the 1945 Act and the 1960 Act, we find these words:
The advisory committee shall act in accordance with the general direction given to them by the Board with the consent of the Treasury.
It was certainly within the power of the Government to tell the Committee, within the limits of the Act, to do whatever they thought right. The only thing that they could not have done would be to recommend insolvent firms, or go outside the purposes of the Act altogether. The President of the Board of Trade will agree that the purposes of the Act, as defined in 1960, thanks, incidentally, to Amendments moved from this side of the House, are in fact very wide and would justify any action which, I think, any of us would wish to take for the sake of these areas.
It is quite true that the Labour Government hardly ever used the powers to make grants under the 1945 Act. That was not because the powers were not legally there; it was because, as a matter of policy where public money was being used, we preferred to employ that money for investment and the creation of publicly-owned assets, rather than simply handing it as a free gift to private firms. Indeed, it is a rather solemn thought that unemployment was reduced by 1951 to far lower figures than those at which it stands today in all the development districts, with virtually no grants of public money having been made at all.
The point that I am making now is that the powers were there under the Act. But I think it very doubtful whether


even the power to give building grants under the 1960 Act really added anything, apart, admittedly, from the removal of the word "annually" before grants, to the existing powers, despite all the publicity we had then. Indeed, it might be argued that this change actually limited the Government's power because it introduced a specific limit, that is to say, 85 per cent. of the difference between the cost of the building and the market value of the factory. The Board is still compelled under the 1960 Act to consult B.O.T.A.C., and presumably it would not wish to disregard the recommendations which it gets from B.O.T.A.C.
However that may be, the 1960 Act continued in Section 4 the words which I have quoted, in addition to the section affecting building grants. It continued the powers to make grants and loans. These are now on the Statute Book, and the Board of Trade could make grants and loans under that Section not limited to 25 per cent. for building, or to 10 per cent. for machinery or plant, but up to any amount that it chose. The only limitations are that it must consult B.O.T.A.C., that the firm must be solvent, and that we must remain within the general purposes of the Act.
Presumably that will remain. The viability of the firm has to be proved both in the case of the building grant and the machinery grant. The general purposes of the Act are still included, quite rightly, as a condition in both cases. As to consultation with B.O.T.A.C., the statutory position remains the same, as the President of the Board of Trade and the Parliamentary Secretary have said, in the case of building; and even in the case of machinery and plant, though B.O.T.A.C. disappears formally, the Board can still act only with the consent of the Treasury even under the present Act.
Therefore, if what the Government were doing was substituting this Bill for Section 4 of the 1960 Act it would be arguable that all that they have done is to limit the powers that they previously had and not extend them. But that is not what they are doing. What they are doing is to leave Section 4 standing and to tack on to it the Clauses of the new Bill. In that situation—and I ask this because we have not had it, cleared up—in what respect,

bearing in mind that the previous Section 4 continues, does this Bill give the Board any powers which did not exist under the 1960 Act?
The President of the Board of Trade did not answer that question during the Budget debate, nor did the Parliamentary Secretary tonight. One of two things must be true. Either the Bill actually limits the grants that can be given to 25 per cent. for building, and 10 per cent. for machinery and plant, where before there was no limit, or the situation is going to be almost the same as it was before. There seem to be only two minute differences, which I gladly concede are there, that the Treasury, instead of B.O.T.A.C., has to be consulted in the case of machinery and plant, and, secondly, that adaptations to buildings as well as actual new buildings are now, quite rightly, to be eligible for grants.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Would it have been possible under the previous Act to fix a definite percentage such as is provided in this Act?

Mr. Jay: I am arguing that under the previous Act—and if I am wrong the Minister can prove it—it was possible to give a grant for the purposes of the undertaking of any percentage which was deemed expedient and necessary in the circumstances. In any case, whatever view we take of Section 4, the 25 per cent. of the building grant for new buildings is nothing more than a replacement at a fixed figure of the previous grant which averaged 17 per cent. under the 1960 Act.
This is a very small change, if indeed it is a change at all, which could perhaps be of advantage in enabling firms to know in advance precisely what they will get, but I wonder whether it may not be a disadvantage in the sense of being too rigid and probably discriminating against the very blackest areas of all where the gap might be expected to be largest between the cost of building and the actual market value of the factory.
If the Government are going to argue that all this new legislation is necessary because B.O.T.A.C. had to be consulted about the previous grants, surely the answer is that the B.O.T.A.C. procedure could and should have been speeded up and streamlined? That could have been


done administratively at any time without any need to legislate about it. In any case, B.O.T.A.C. still has to be consulted in a great number of cases under the Bill. There does not seem to be any very great change there.
The Bill also continues a number of limitations contained in the previous Acts. As the Parliamentary Secretary told us tonight, all these grants are to be confined to industry and are to exclude commercial and office employment. Why should that be so? I should have thought that everybody now recognised that the main defect of the previous legislation, including the 1945 Act, was its failure to apply restraint to office employment in the congested areas, or stimulus to office employment as well as industrial employment in the development areas.
We know that office employment is becoming an ever more important part of total employment, and confining the provisions of this legislation to industry alone is to have an outdated and almost Victorian idea of our economy. If the Board of Trade had included office employment in the scope of the Bill it would not have been compelled to make grants in respect of office schemes which were not worthy of support by the Government. But the exclusion of office employment means that the Board of Trade is prohibited from helping office schemes in development districts in cases where it might have thought it wise to do so.
As I understood the Parliamentary Secretary's speech, local authorities are excluded from participating on the same terms as private industry. I understand the position to be that if a local authority was going to erect, say, an abattoir, and was to be a direct employer, it might receive a grant under the Bill, but if it were to build a factory, possibly for letting or for sale to industry it could not get a grant, although it would be able to do so if it lent the money to a firm and that firm built the factory and then put in an application for a Government grant. If that is correct, I am not sure that it is the most logical way of proceeding, and we shall probably have to pursue that matter further in Committee.
Will the President of the Board of Trade also make clear—because if the Parliamentary Secretary did I did not

follow him—whether we can assume that publicly-owned industries are eligible on exactly the same terms as are private firms? I assume that that is so, but I should like to have it clarified.
Does the Bill also apply to public utilities such as dock facilities and undertakings of that kind—I believe that the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) has raised this point—which conceivably might not be covered by the other basic services Sections of the 1960 Act? We would wish it to do that. The Parliamentary Secretary made it clear that replacement of machinery and plant will not be eligible for this grant, even in development districts, and that a grant will be made only in respect of new schemes, and presumably in new factories. This is in contradistinction to the free depreciation, which will be available for replacements.
Another defect in the Bill is that it makes no provision for any form of State participation in the schemes which are being encouraged, or for any form of partnership with private firms, in order to bring new ventures into these areas, whether by way of equity shareholdings, joint subsidiaries, or methods of that kind. We are still confining the whole procedure to fixed interest loans or grants, where the State puts up the money but gets no share of the profits and no control of the enterprise.
If these areas are really to be developed, expanded and fully employed, we must experiment with much more positive forms of partnership. It will not be enough for the State simply to hand over the money and then sit back and wait to see what happens. If we have so much public money to spend on this purpose I have a good deal of doubt whether the best way to use it is to hand it out in grants and not to get any public assets in return.
I trust that the Government will not regard the new grants—if they are new—proposed in this Bill, or the free depreciation provisions outlined in the Finance Bill, as an excuse for easing up on other methods necessary to end unemployment in these areas; either by a determined restraint on excessive expansion in the congested areas or positive development of Government financed factories and industrial estates, the clearance of derelict sites, the


modernisation of basic services and all the other measures which are urgently needed in the development districts. These latter, it seems to me, are likely to prove better uses for public money than the provision of free grants and subsidies.
If the Government were to regard these measures as a substitute for all the other forms of action which we have advocated, we might end by doing more harm than good to these areas. If they are additional to the other measures which ought to be undertaken, we shall certainly welcome this Bill, provided that the powers in it—unlike those in previous Bills—are really used; but we need more evidence than we have had yet from Ministers before we shall be convinced that there really are additional material powers in this Bill which are not already on the Statute Book and ought to have been used in the last years.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. John Brewis: I consider that one should welcome the provisions which have come out of the Budget for improving the grants for industry entering the development districts, but I wish to make one or two points which, in a way, may seem like looking a gift horse in the mouth. The first relates to building grants. Undoubtedly it is a very good thing that the incoming industrialists knows straight away that he will get at least a 25 per cent. grant upon which he can count. But now the grant is to be exactly the same for every part of the British Isles. It is to be the same for Merseyside and for the Highlands. If there is a choice between going to a distant locality or to somewhere like Merseyside, it seems to me that Merseyside will be chosen every time. It will give a great pull to the sort of urban development areas which there are in the South rather than to the more remote districts in Scotland.
I think it is certainly a help that the grant has been increased from, roughly, 17 per cent. to 25 per cent. But it is true that that 17 per cent. had an extension on either side. I believe that the highest grant ever obtained under the provisions of Section 3 of the 1950 Act amounted to 41 per cent. and the lowest grant was nil. The average was 17 per

cent. With the great difficulties which we are experiencing in certain parts of the country, particularly in the Highlands, in Northern Ireland and in Stranraer I think that we should not have a grant, which did go up to 41 per cent., reduced to 25 per cent. We need to look at a separate form of development district, which might be described as a critical area, where it is very difficult to get industry to go, and instead of 25 per cent. the grant should go up as high as 40 per cent. in such areas. That would be an earnest of our intention to try to develop remote areas like the Highlands. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade may think this is a bit far-fetched, but exactly the same thing is done in continental countries, particularly in Italy under the Vannoni Plan for developing the southern undeveloped part of that country.
I pass next to who can receive the building grant. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said that it could go to factories built through the agency of local authorities. I think it an open secret that local authorities can build these factories rather better than the Board of Trade can. They can offer better terms because, while the Board of Trade usually asks for amortisation over about fifteen years, the local authority can borrow money over at least thirty and possibly as much as sixty years. The terms, therefore, are much more favourable from a local authority.
Where does the limit come? If a local authority builds a factory such as Starratts in Jedburgh which is amortised over a certain term, it will eventually be owned by the industrialist. I see no harm in a local authority getting grant when the factory will eventually go to the industrialist.
If we are to be too mean in giving help to people occupying factories in development districts which become vacant, we shall have the position in certain areas such as Merseyside in which there are empty factories in one street while in another part of the town people are building factories with a grant. That cannot be economical. My right hon. Friend should look at that again. I could speak much longer on this subject, but I shall sit down now in view of the lateness of the hour.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. H. Hynd: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said, it is not very attractive to oppose this Bill. He said that it was something like a deathbed repentance, but nevertheless we welcome anything which seems likely to be helpful to the worst-hit parts of the country.
My quarrel with the Bill is that it is confined too rigidly to districts which have been already scheduled as development districts. The country is being divided into black and white areas. I happen to represent a grey area, a marginal area where—I use the word advisedly—we are just the wrong side of the line. It is almost a paradox that it would be of benefit to certain districts to have a little more unemployment than they have at present. There is an arbitrary ruling by the Board of Trade as to what is and what is not a development district. I do not think the ruling has been given officially to the public. I believe it is 4½ per cent. of unemployment over a certain period. Could we know exactly whether it is 4½ per cent. and what the period is? I believe the official ruling is something to the effect that it has to be substantial unemployment for a substantial period, or words to that effect—

Mr. Charles Loughlin: High and persistent.

Mr. Hynd: My hon. Friend tells me that it is "high and persistent". Could we have a definition showing what that means? Without that definition many districts such as mine will feel a sense of frustration and that they have been much too hardly done by. In a district like mine industry is in a bad way. The

cotton industry, in particular, is declining. Unless the surviving industries receive some help, the district will suffer even more and may slide over the line and become a development district. / am sure that the Government do not want that. I have recently had correspondence with the Board of Trade about a firm which wants to set up on a new industrial estate which the town of Accrington has built. The firm is denied the assistance promised in the Budget. This means that there is an attraction to go to another district. Surely this is not what the Government want. It will be a bad thing for the district and for the Government.
I plead for some elasticity to enable the President of the Board of Trade to judge when a district is obviously in a dangerous condition and offer it some help. There should not be this rigid line. At the moment, if they are one side of the line they can be helped, but if they are the other side of the line they cannot be. The Bill goes to the length of providing a certain amount of assistance to districts which have ceased to be scheduled as development districts. Can it not go the other way as well and allow the President of the Board of Trade to give a little assistance to those districts which are in danger of becoming development districts, those which are developing into development districts? If there is elasticity one way, there should be some freedom for the Minister to act in the other direction as well. He should have some discretion to enable him to prevent these grey districts from becoming black. I ask the President of the Board of Trade seriously to consider whether the Bill could be altered and extended in this way.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton: This is a well-meaning Bill. I hope that it will in the course of its passage be so altered that I shall be able to wish it well. I cannot at the moment, for in Clause 2 there is an inherent injustice which I regard as intolerable. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary know full well the point to which I refer. I asked my hon. Friend just now whether Clause 2 proposes to allow the 25 per cent. grant to apply to second-hand buildings. The answer, as I expected, was "No". This would entail, if the Clause went through in its present form, the most gross injustice by undercutting well-meaning authorities—management corporations and local authorities—which had tried to solve their own problems by buying redundant railway workshops, as in my case, and so on, establishing for themselves trading estates, and then by Act of Parliament having their assets, which they were desperately and expensively, with some success, trying to sell to incoming industry, reduced by a sweep of the Parliamentary pen to 75 per cent. of the value at which they bought it. Further than that, in many cases they would be left with an unsaleable asset.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has visited my constituency, and we are grateful for his interest in it. My right hon. Friend has also visited my constituency, and I pay the most grateful tribute to his interest. They both know very well that in my constituency I have, thank goodness, an enterprising, forward-looking corporation. It was not prepared to be left behind when the sweep of events meant that the railway workshops in Darlington had to be closed. It was not prepared to sit down and do nothing. It went out and bought the workshops, and is prepared to turn them into a new and thriving industrial trading estate. My right hon. Friend proposes in Clause 2 to make that enterprise unsaleable.
If the many firms that are naturally interested in the possibilities, and the privilege, of coming to Darlington, are now to be told, "Oh, if you go up the road somewhere else and build a factory, you'll get a 25 per cent. grant on it, but if you take over this factory you won't."

they will go up the road. What is more important, if they do that, it will be a further year before the unemployment situation in our district is relieved. On the face of it, this seems to be such a gross and obvious injustice that I cannot believe that any Government—least of all the Government I profoundly support—could possibly allow Clause 2, as it stands, to get on the Statute Book.
I do not want to be told—I know that nobody would really believe it—that it would not be possible administratively to apply the 25 per cent. grant to buildings in the possession of public corporations because it would be difficult to value them; that there might be a "fiddle." To say that would be absolute bunkum. At the moment, the factories in the possession of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade can be valued by the district valuer. The sort of factories I am thinking about can be valued by the district valuer. If anybody says that there cannot be a "fiddle" on new buildings, what about the new factory built by the owner on the site—by a firm of constructional engineers, building for itself? Who values that? Obviously, the district valuer must and should value the new factory, and can also perfectly easily value the secondhand factory of which I am thinking.
I do not want to get too "steamed up," because I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows how deeply I feel about this matter, and realises that neither I nor, I should imagine, many other people placed in my situation, could possibly support this Bill if Clause 2 remains in its present form. I therefore beg that he will not hesitate to amend and enlarge the Clause's provisions before there is any question of our being asked to put this well-meaning Bill on the Statute Book.

10.34 p.m.

Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: I am sure that at this late hour the House will welcome very short speeches because, despite the Bill's limitations and defects, we welcome it as a step towards doing something constructive in attracting new industries to our development districts and want to put it to work as soon as possible.
I support what has been said about increasing the 25 per cent. fixed grant


in Clause 2 to a much higher figure, but I want to speak in the context of the 25 per cent. grant already embodied in the Clause. Whilst this grant may give a certain degree of satisfaction, and be a very strong incentive to industrialists to go to development districts to build their factories on what are considered to be normal sites, certain difficulties will arise if industrialists are attracted to certain special development districts which, by reason of topography, geography, and other factors, are severely handicapped by this Clause.
I refer particularly to those development districts in the old mining districts where the incidence of subsidence is a serious consideration and where the value of the 25 per cent. incentive is considerably diminished by the factors of geology and subsidence. In my constituency, the Rhondda Valley, where the hills slope down to the river or railway and there is very little tableland, we have to depend for our future industrial development on sites which have been created as a result of clearance. These clearances take place on either old colliery tips or old colliery sites. Consequently, an industrialist who was prospecting in our area would be strongly influenced by considerations of the possibility of subsidence and the fact that many of the sites are not virgin land.
This land has been tipped on over the last forty years with the result that 30 feet or 40 feet in depth may be the result of previous tipping. Some surveyors may say that the land has settled after forty years, but there is an element of doubt about that, especially if a firm bed is required by an engineering undertaking to hold blocks of machinery which may weigh from 30 to 50 tons.
The industrialist concerned and the surveyor would insist that there should be boring on a site of that character, and the industrialist would be faced with the extra cost of providing concrete supports as an artificial foundation. This is an expensive procedure which would eat considerably into the 25 per cent. grant. A substantial proportion of the grant would be buried capital, out of sight in the earth, to provide the concrete stanchions to support the factory.
I ask the Minister to consider this point seriously, otherwise we shall be handicapped severely by the doubts

which the prospector would feel about coming to an area of that kind. This applies not only to the mining valleys but also probably to mining areas throughout the country which are now classified as development districts. The Minister must not fear that he would be treading new ground. There is a precedent in the financial and miscellaneous provisions of the Housing Act, 1946, which provide that local authorities confronted with the problems of subsidence and non-virgin types of land may receive a subsidy of £2 per house per annum to help them recover the capital expended in providing the artificial foundations required for certain construction work. I trust, therefore, that the Minister will consider this point. If matters are left as they are, the 25 per cent. grant will be considerably devalued. I hope that when the Bill is dealt with in Committee the right hon. Gentleman will give us some information on this point.

10.40 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade must be slightly surprised that this Bill has run into such a large amount of constructive criticism. He must have been absolutely stunned by the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton). I welcome the principle behind the Bill but, with great respect, I have never been very happy at the idea that problems which affect heavy industry and the future of the areas which are dependent largely on heavy industry should be in the hands of the Board of Trade, which is predominantly a Department which deals with general commerce. All the points that my hon. Friend touched on relate to responsibilities which are borne by different Departments in the field of Government administration.
I also intend to be reasonably critical, but I should like to preface my remarks by saying that I understand the purpose behind the Bill, and if by any chance we can manage to get it into a proper shape it will be very welcome. But I think that by the time we have finished with the Bill there will be hardly any part of it which is acceptable to anyone who is dealing with this very difficult problem of trying to create a high stan-


dard of employment in some of our most difficult areas.
I agreed very much with the speech of the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd). I do not think we have had what I might call a general interpretation of how this Bill is going to work. Certainly the old figures on which development areas were based have not been referred to. Little information has been given to us. We are all in the dark and, as far as I can understand, we are all at present rather dissatisfied with the information which has been given to us.
One of the fundamental purposes of the Bill is to deal with persistent unemployment. But before my right hon. Friend introduced the Bill we had from the Ministry of Public Building and Works a Report entitled "Production of Building Components in Shipyards." I should like to read a number of extracts from that Report. Under the heading "Spare Labour Force" the following words appear:
Another measure of capacity in shipbuilding is the fact that the current labour force in all yards"—
I emphasise "in all yards"—
is at present roughly 70 per cent. of what it was two years ago. This percentage is likely to drop later this year. In the yards we visited"—
that is, the committee which made the Report—
the figure has in fact already dropped to about 50 per cent.
I should like to know whether the intention of the Bill is to help to stabilise now and for the future a high level of employment in the areas which are regarded as development districts. If so, we want to know how we are to stabilise a shipbuilding force if part of the area in the North-East Coast—the same applies to Merseyside and Tyneside—is not scheduled as a development district.
That Report was issued, quite recently, after visits had been paid—although they are not named, this is obvious—to a large number of shipyards in this country. The labour force is contracting in the shipyards and has contracted. If this has happened to the extent indicated in that Report, will my right hon. Friend agree that it shows the persistence

of a high level of unemployment in one of the major industries which forms the pattern of industrial production in the development districts? I want an answer to that.
Before I read that Report, I was about to write to my right hon. Friend because, on other matters connected with the development districts, the terms of the Bill did not seem to have been very carefully or accurately thought out. Obviously, the hon. Member for Accrington also would be interested to know what my right hon. Friend thinks, since he addressed his question to him tonight. The level of unemployment in Darlington at the present time is very much lower than it is in almost all the other districts in the northern area. Of course, I welcome what is being done in an effort to deal with the situation following the closure of the railway workshops.
I wrote to my right hon. Friend to ask about the scheduling of Darlington, with a comparatively low level of unemployment at present compared with some areas. I asked what was the basis of the unemployment figures on which the development districts were proposed and listed.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Will not my hon. Friend agree that it is sensible and right for my right hon. Friend to think ahead? This is the simple principle on which not only Darlington but, before that, Seaton Delaval and other places were scheduled. There was some sensible thinking ahead.

Dame Irene Ward: I absolutely accept that, but my hon. Friend is not the only person concerned with unemployment, and other people want thinking ahead for their workers just as my hon. Friend wants it for Darlington. Since my hon. Friend has raised this point, I will add that I watch with the greatest interest the Ministers who have the most influence in the Cabinet. Of course, since the railway workshops in Darlington were, unfortunately, closed, or threatened with closure, by Dr. Beeching—

Mr. Bourne-Arton: No.

Dame Irene Ward: Certainly—with very bad public relations, because he did not consult or go through any of the motions of doing what he ought to have done—

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Really—

Dame Irene Ward: No. I am not giving way. I intend to finish what I am saying. There is no reason why my hon. Friend should think that Darlington is the only place which has anxieties.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I know that my hon. Friend means us well, but if she wishes to talk about my constituency, she should not misquote the facts. The facts are not as she has given them. I am grateful for her sympathy in our troubles with the closure of the workshops, but when she says that this was done without consultation, she is quite wrong. That is not true. I am the Member for Darlington, and I assert that.

Dame Irene Ward: I am very glad to know that, My hon. Friend has taken a view quite different from nearly everyone else. There have been Questions in the House about it, and most of my hon. Friends from the North-East Coast certainly do not think that Dr. Beeching has done what he might have done in the matter of public relations. My hon. Friend may have different views on this.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Mr. Bourne-Arton rose—

Dame Irene Ward: I have indicated to my hon. Friend that I intended to raise this matter. If he will let me make my speech he will know what I am trying to say.
I have watched with great interest the fact that some hon. Members have greater access to the Cabinet than have other hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is very quick and very right to get in quickly, in view of the difficulties arising in Darlington, to ensure that Darlington would get what benefit it could—and I am delighted that it will get benefit from the new Bill.

Mr. Dan Jones: What benefit there is to get.

Dame Irene Ward: I am explaining what is happening on the Tyne and what is happening in Darlington. I was surprised When my hon. Friend attacked my right hon. Friend, but he always takes an independent line, and I admire him for it. At the same time,

he must not be surprised if I compare what my right hon. Friend is doing for Darlington and what is happening on Tyneside and Wearside. There are great financial advantages which Tyneside and the Tees Valley are denied. My hon. Friend should examine what is happening to others on the North-East Coast before he feels quite as cross as he did about Darlington.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: I require all my time to try to represent the people who sent me here—the electors of Darlington. Of course I am interested in other areas, but that is my primary consideration, and I make no apology for it.

Dame Irene Ward: Dame Irene Ward rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. I feel sure that it is time to come back to the Second Reading of the Local Employment Bill.

Dame Irene Ward: I agree. Perhaps my hon. Friend will remain in his seat and allow me to get on with my speech.
I want to give the hon. Member for Accrington the information for which he asks from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. He was asked about the unemployment figures in Darlington, which are 3·4 per cent. of the insured population, compared with certain parts of the Tyneside, which include North Shields, Whitley Bay and Wallsend-on-Tyne, which have 6·2 per cent., and which have not yet had the benefit of the Bill.
Like the hon. Member for Accrington, I am trying to ascertain the basis on which my right hon. Friend has decided the scheduling. This is the answer which my right hon. Friend gave:
In the four groups of areas on Tyneside, including Tyneside South-East"—
which is the south end of the Tyne—
which is a development district, together with the development districts of Prudhoe and Blaydon, the unemployment percentage for the same period"—
as that covered for the Darlington area—
averaged 4·4 per cent. In the three unlisted groups of areas on Tyneside"—
that is, the north bank of the Tyne—
the percentage rate of unemployment was naturally lower (3·8 per cent.)


The figures which I obtained from the Ministry of Labour today—and the figures are as up to date as the Ministry of Labour can make them—show that the unemployment figure for the present period is 6·2 per cent. The Minister said:
As for the criteria; our original list of development districts announced in March, 1460, was based on the assumption that at that time a rate of 4·5 per cent. or more wholly unemployed should be regarded as high for the purpose of applying the Act.
If they consider that 4·5 per cent. was high for the purpose of applying the 1960 Act, I take great exception to the fact that when unemployment rises, as it has, and persists for some time—and I draw attention to the report of the Special Committee which has been looking into the matter—to over 6 per cent., the area is still not scheduled.
I will not read what is said about Darlington, but with regard to Tyneside the letter states:
… on the other hand, while we know that shipbuilding generally is going through a difficult period, we do not know of Tyneside firms faced with a threat of immediate closure. The Tyneside firms are doing at any rate as well as others in the industry, and we hope this will continue.
But I would point out that we have always tried to say that firms must modernise and keep up to date, and no one could possibly assert that the shipbuilding firms on Tyneside—Swan Hunter, Vickers-Armstrong, Smith's Docks repairing yard, Hawthorns, and so on—have not spent a vast sum of money in modernising their yards in order to be able to compete with the rest of the world. In fact, if it were not for the subsidisation that goes on in other countries, we could sweep the board with competitive tendering.
But the point is that my right hon. Friend dares to say in a letter that none of these yards is threatened by closure. He ought to have said "Thank God for that". But this is a shipbuilding area which is faced with a permanent contraction. One has only to read the speeches made by the chairmen of shipbuilding and shipping companies at annual meetings and the speeches of Ministers of the Crown; they have pointed out that the one basic industry which is facing a

decline which may be permanent is the shipbuilding industry.
It is an extraordinary thing that one bank of the River Tyne can be scheduled as a development district and yet the other bank where my right hon. Friend, through another Minister, has put in accelerated naval orders in order to try to maintain employment, should be deprived of some diversification of industry, which, after all, was the objective of the original Act introduced before the war by the Conservative Government under the Premiership of Mr. Stanley Baldwin. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite always talk about the 1945 and 1960 Acts. They must have forgotten the original Act which established the trading estates which have been of real benefit to the North-East Coast and South Wales. I am always very grateful to the Conservative Party for what it did in this direction.
I want to draw attention to some of the areas which are scheduled, and I want a little more explanation from my right hon. Friend about this. For instance, Consett, which, as a centre of iron and steel, has had its periods of very great difficulty, has spent a vast amount of private capital on modernising its plant. Consett is scheduled, and its unemployment rate, I am glad to say, is only 3·9 per cent. But Gateshead and Felling, situated on Tyneside, with the Team Valley, which was built and developed in order to provide diversification of industry, always one of the necessities on the North-East Coast, has an unemployment rate of 5·1 per cent. This seems to require a good deal of inquiry.
From both sides of the House, the North-East Coast and the North-East Development Council has come a demand to the Prime Minister and the Lord President of the Council—although the latter has been pretty shrewd in not making any observations and merely saying in correspondence that the decision does not rest with him for some reconsideration of the areas which have been scheduled as development districts. It is that demand to which I want an answer.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary clearly talked as though these are new provisions, as they are—although I was shattered by the speech


of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay)—and said that these new decisions had been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to help areas of high unemployment. What I want to know is whether the whole basis of the approach to unemployment is being changed without the House of Commons being informed. I dislike that line intensely.
There is a great deal of talk about factories, but factories are static and shipbuilding has different problems which my right hon. Friend does not seem to understand. On the Tyne and Mersey and Wear and on Tees-side, men who work in shipbuilding move from one area to another according to the stage of construction which ships have reached. For instance, electricians will come from all over the river to concentrate on the electrical equipment of a tanker. Unlike the workers in a static factory, shipbuilding workers move from area to area. If I may say so to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington, shipbuilding is also unlike railway workshops in that respect.
If the north bank of the Tyne houses men who are employed in shipbuilding areas on the south bank, which is scheduled because it is not full of orders, it can make no difference to the labour force if the provisions of the Bill are used to establish factories on the north or south bank of the Tyne. I find it irritating and slightly difficult that I cannot get a proper appreciation of the great problems of shipbuilding from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, especially when shipbuilding is the lifeblood not only of our rivers but of our economy.
I hope that we shall not be told that the percentage levels of unemployment criteria have been altered to the point where they do not suit the development districts. When the Conservative Members of Parliament went to see the Prime Minister, who also generously gave half an hour of his time to a member of the Opposition afterwards, which was a very good thing—

Mr. Edward Short: One.

Dame Irene Ward: He was jolly lucky to have the Prime Minister to himself for half an hour—[An HON. MEMBER.—"An hour"]—an hour then—all the better.

We always knew this was the most interested Prime Minister that this country has ever had.
All I want to tell my right hon. Friend is that we northern Conservative Members interviewed the Prime Minister and he agreed with us about the scheduling of our area. I presume that the same applies to other areas, because the President of the Board of Trade is not particularly interested only in our area; he has great responsibilities over a wide field. The Prime Minister told us that he appreciated the point that we had made about the problems, and about the way our area was scheduled.
It will be found that the Ministry of Labour groups Wallsend, North Shields and Whitley Bay together. Whitley Bay does not find employment in the industrial area but mostly in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and it therefore reduces the unemployment figure in the other two industrial areas. That is not quite playing cricket. My local authority was responsible for establishing the West Kirby trading estate. My town clerk says that North Shields has had a persistent rate of unemployment up to 7 per cent. It is nonsensical that areas with a much lower level of unemployment should be scheduled.
Naturally, when a Bill of this kind comes forward, in the first flush of excitement many people can take advantage of it. I do not think that its value should be restricted to a few areas, picked out by my right hon. Friend without informing the House that he has altered the whole basis upon which areas are scheduled. I wish him luck with the following speeches, because this is an imaginative Bill, and when we get these matters sorted out, and when we get fair treatment for our great rivers—that is to say, when shipbuilding is understood by the President of the Board of Trade—I hope that we shall go forward and make the greatest use we can of the financial benefits which the Chancellor foreshadowed in the Budget not long ago.

11.7 p.m.

Mr. H. Rhodes: T welcome the Bill, as implementing the proposals made by the Chancellor during his Budget speech. The chronic nature of unemployment in a few districts throughout. the United King-


dom has been evident for quite a long time. We have had mention of the criterion that was laid down in respect of the degree of unemployment qualifying an area for development district status, but when the Measure was originally introduced in 1960 and the criterion was put at 4·5 per cent., it was in a boom year. The chronic nature of unemployment in some areas has persisted right tile way through, and the present situation is worse. That is why the Government have now decided to act.
But these are vast sums of money, and I want to say a little more in the way of a scientific appraisal. Not only has the N.E.D.C. investigated seventeen industries for growth; along with that, it has carried out an investigation into the well-being of industries which are suffering decline.
It would appear that a lot of the Measures that we have passed in the last few years for the relief of unemployment have been brought in very hurriedly and without a tremendous lot of thought behind them. If, for instance, we can make an estimate of the rate of decline of an industry in a development district and replace that industry as it declines in an orderly manner, which, I think, with the scientific thinking that is now going on in some of the Government Departments and their ancillary councils should be possible, we should be better prepared to meet contingencies of this sort.
In the past we have had experience of action taking place in a way which, very often, has created difficulties soon afterwards. I refer to the stop-listing of development districts. I suppose that since about October, 1961, we have taken four areas off the list of development districts and then replaced them within the comparatively short time of a few months, which shows the shallowness of our thinking and that we have not really got to the bottom of the true causes of the chronic nature of the problem.
Every time a development district is stop-listed the administrative difficulties become terrific. This is not generally realised by hon. Members, and it means that the management corporations, which really have the job of being the Government's agents for a variety of

purposes in the districts, have to close down. If they are brought into being again they have to open new sets of offices. That is only one of the many points involved, and I will not pursue that one further.
I come now to the matter mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary of the capital intensive industries. I was extremely pleased tonight when I heard the hon. Gentleman say that the Government were going to adopt a flexible line under the Bill regarding automation of capital intensive industries. May I put this point to him? It seems to me that if we pursue a policy, where it is acceptable to the Treasury, of having a low figure for the creation of employment while the rest of the country is going in for intensive capital equipment on a high basis, we shall set up a new circumstance in the development districts where we are encouraging low cost development and shall perpetuate the problem. I should like the Minister to refer to this when he replies to the debate.
We have a society which is now moving very rapidly towards automation in many of its industries, thereby creating redundancy, which the Government, in turn, have to tackle. Therefore, there is a general acceptance of change, and in the development districts we are likely to perpetuate, through the low cost that we allow in terms of employment created, a divergence of aim which it may be very difficult to get out of in years to come.
We have heard little about the estimate of cost. But on the Estimates Committee we have seen figures showing the small amounts which have been taken up. It is extraordinary that this year was to have been the year when the sum would have been the smallest since the inception of the legislation, but the one when the greatest efforts would be made to create employment in the development districts. That again reveals a lack of forward thinking of the kind which is necessary before we are able to do anything to cure this chronic problem. I realise that it is difficult and that the Board of Trade is anxious to put enough and to spare in the Estimates in order that the facilities may be taken advantage of, but I ask the Minister to give us some idea of Government thinking on this matter.
My last point relates to the question of safeguards. There are anomalies with


which it will be difficult to deal. One was mentioned by the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) and another by the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd). I can think of one or two. I wish to ask the Minister whether it would be possible for a firm situated outside a development district to set up a subsidiary within the development district and transfer the machinery from the parent company and obtain a grant on the machinery which, on paper, had been sold to the new firm. That type of anomaly would get the scheme a bad name if Ministers are not careful.
I recall the reorganisation of the cotton industry at the time of Sir Stafford Cripps. Many millions were given in grants by the then Labour Government. One firm drew quite a lot of money and within a few months had a fire. It drew the fire insurance but never opened its mills again.
This is the beginning of a new drive to help the areas where unemployment is chronic. I hope that the Government will not be misled by clamour about other areas of the country until something has been done about that, because it is a national scandal that we have not been able to Jo anything about the suffering in these areas.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) has put before the House some interesting and practical comments on the Bill, and I hope to follow his practical points. The value of the Bill arises in this way. Under the 1960 Act, the two main forms of assistance were building grants under Section 3 and general grants and loans under Section 4, but any ordinary industrialist who read that Act and tried to understand what was meant by the formula in Section 3 (2) of how to calculate the building grant that he was likely to get was completely foxed.
To anyone who reads that Section—for example the words
eighty-five per cent. of any excess of the cost, as estimated by the Board, of providing an adequate building or extension …" and so on—
it is unintelligible. Many people give up trying to work it out before they start any plans. It is much too speculative for the ordinary man to work out what he may get by way of grant, and he gives

it up and does not waste time doing it. If he is brave enough to continue and to try to work out plans for development in a development district, he encounters delays in negotiation with the Board of Trade. Those delays have killed many schemes.
Perhaps it is right and proper that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade should examine all proposals with the greatest care, because he is dealing with the taxpayer's money, but the delays in negotiations and in understanding what a developer is likely to get by way of grant or loan have deterred many developers. Section 4 of the Act, dealing with general grants and loans, is extremely vague.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will know that most of the criticisms of the 1960 Act have been centred around the uncertainty of the amount and nature of grants and the delays in decisions upon them. Now, under the Bill, we get, first, some precision about the building grants, in that they are to be a fixed percentage of 25 per cent., and, secondly, some precision in one respect at least about the general grants and loans; that is, precision about the grant for plant and machinery.
Subsection (3) of Clause 1 of the Bill is a model of clarity. It states:
The amount of any grant under this section shall be ten per cent. of the cost of acquiring arid installing the machinery or plant in respect of which it is made.
What more simple statement could we have? This is where there will be great benefit from the Bill. On the general grants and loans, there may, perhaps, be other classes of grant which could be set out precisely in that way.
I think in particular of the use of the shipyards for prefabrication of housing units. Could not there be a clear statement of the assistance which could be given to those who will now be going into the shipyards to assist in prefabricated buildings? For applications which cannot have a precise definition, will my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary please consider the procedure for negotiations and endeavour to make it more expeditious?
In connection with the general grants, the new grant for plant and machinery


and the building grants, will my hon. Friend see whether his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade can give any assurance about the length of time that a development district is to be a development district? The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne rightly complained about the stop-and-go procedure with a development district. Clause 3 meets that partially. After a development district ceases to be a development district the benefits of the Bill can still continue. But the problem goes much further than just completing work in hand.
Merseyside was a development district some years ago. Firms were attracted there. In fact, the development district status was so successful that it was removed. I would ask the House to remember that development district status does not merely mean building factories there; there are preferences over Government contracts, and so on. The buildings that were encouraged when Merseyside was first a development district were finished, and then, when Merseyside ceased to be a development district, there were not the jobs to fill them. Now, although Merseyside is again a development district, we have many vacant factories. It is not so much new factories that we need built there as the jobs to fill them.
Though many of the factories that are empty there are quite new, some of them are old. In that respect, I am pleased to see Clause 2(3), which deals with the adapting of existing buildings. That will be some help in the case of old factories that need adapting, but I am not sure that it is quite sufficient. To take the whole of Lancashire as an example, rather than just Merseyside, sixty-one cotton mills have been closed since August, 1961, and only nine have been reoccupied since, mainly because the buildings are too old for modern industry and the only thing for them is demolition.
I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary whether demolition is part of the cost of providing a building or an extension of a building, because the only thing to do with some old factories is to demolish them and rebuild. I am not sure whether the cost of demolition comes into the building grant. Incidentally, I am not sure whether providing

the building includes the cost of the land—

Mr. D. Price: No.

Mr. Page: I thought it did not. This is an important matter, especially with the demolition and rebuilding of old factories.
Returning to the topic of the vacant factories, industrialists know what happened on Merseyside last time—this on off development district status—and the memorial is there for them to see. Taking the whole of Lancashire and Merseyside, there are 375 vacant industrial buildings, with 26 million square feet of factory floor space, and industrialists will not come again unless there is some assurance of permanency in the advantages given to the development district.
I do not say that nobody will develop there. In fact, those who are already on Merseyside are developing even before this Measure comes into force. The motor car industries there have announced big developments. Vauxhalls, General Motors, Fords, are all going ahead, but they are already there; they see the advantages of the area because they are there. It is not only the motor car manufacturers; the Plessey Company, the Otis Elevator Company and Reed's tinplating factory are all going ahead with developments. This is happening without this Bill.
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) was in any way right in talking about gift horses, death-bed repentance, and so on. To use another simile, this Bill is by no means a life-belt thrown to any drowning man. Merseyside is far from drowning—it is very much in the swim of things. At the moment, however, development is from within, and where this Measure will be of great advantage is that it will smooth the way for others to dome in from outside—and come in without delay.
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that neither you nor the House would let me try to make the speech I have been trying to make for the last two days during another debate, but I must tell my hon. Friend that this Bill will be completely nullified if his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport accepts the Bombing Report, and closes down the


suburban railways of Liverpool and Merseyside.
One cannot attract industry into Merseyside when it is advertised for all to see that railways such as the Liverpool-Southport line, carrying 100,000 passengers a week, are to be closed. The workers who have to travel to the work which my right hon. Friend is trying to bring to the district will not be able to get there. This seems to be completely farcical and I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to tell his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport how absolutely crazy it is for one Department—the Board of Trade—to graft a new arm on to a district while another Department is trying to amputate the legs.

11.31 p.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I am sure that the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) will forgive me if I do not follow up his arguments in the debate. My approach to the Bill is rather different from his. In so far as the Bill represents an advance on previous legislation, by providing further Government assistance to firms moving to or expanding in areas of high unemployment, it is to be welcomed, but as this is a Second Reading debate we are entitled to examine the framework within which the provisions of the Bill and of its parent, the Local Employment Act, operate.
I take the view that the whole framework within which the Bill must necessarily operate is entirely inadequate to meet the problems involved, and I am extremely doubtful whether the Bill in itself will make any significant, permanent contribution towards overcoming the many problems which the country faces. After all, the problem with which we are concerned in the Bill is the maldistribution of employment opportunities. This maldistribution is mainly the result of arbitrary movements of population in conditions largely appertaining to the 19th century.
The basic weakness of the Bill, like all its predecessors since the war, is that it is based upon the concept of plugging the holes whenever and wherever they

occur. In theory, for example, under the 1960 Act an area can be designated as a development district when a high rate of unemployment is considered likely to exist. In practice, this rarely happens. Usually it is designated as a development district when a high rate of unemployment is actually seen to exist, and then the provisions of the Local Employment Act are brought into operation with a view to reducing the level of unemployment. However, as soon as this is achieved, the area promptly loses its status as a development district even though the deeper causes of unemployment generally remain unaltered. We have already heard examples given in the debate of instances where this has occurred, particularly on Merseyside which changes its colour very frequently and can disappear and reappear as a development district with monotonous regularity.
The weakness of Government policy, as expressed in legislation to deal with regional unemployment, is that it is a policy designed to provide palliatives based on expediency and does not attempt to conform to a distribution of population and a distribution of employment opportunities policy. This was admitted by the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, in another place on 28th November, 1962, when, as reported in col. 1238 of HANSARD, he advocated in relation to this problem the need for something far more radical and long-sighted. Hon. Members may take the view that it is one of the tragedies of this Government that long sight is one of the attributes advocated by Ministers only after they have left office.
When an hon. Member earlier this evening suggested that the President of the Board of Trade was looking ahead, we are entitled to ask how far he intends to look. It seems to me that this Bill is far too limited in scope to tackle the problem. We have been told that by the end of this century our population will have increased by at least 17 million people. Where is this population going to live and how will it live? What the Government ought to do is to lay down the pattern of our country for the years ahead, and there is no sign that this problem has been tackled.
From these benches it has been maintained for many years that there needs


to be a concerted drive to create new points of growth on a regional scale, and the Local Employment Act, even with the generous help which will occur with the amendments which this Bill introduces, cannot do this because it is too limited in scope. It tends to cover individual targets rather than whole regions. Far more is required than the provision of financial assistance in the form of grants or loans.
I suggest to the President of the Board of Trade that what is really needed is a concerted drive to provide the necessary infrastructure of basic services and utilities, especially transport. This Bill—and this illustrates a point that the hon. Member for Crosby has already made—has been introduced only a month after Dr. Beeching has proposed to denude many areas in the North and West of railways. This policy, if it were implemented, would run contrary to the whole purpose of this Bill because the remaining railways would be concentrated upon the London, Birmingham and Manchester axis, as are most of the new road schemes, and this would inevitably emphasise the advantages of the Midlands and the southeast of England at the expense of the more peripheral areas such as Scotland, the South-West, Wales and the NorthEast—in fact, the very areas which are now experiencing the highest rates of unemployment.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: The hon. and learned Gentleman talks about the North-East, but it is a travesty of the Report, which I hope he has read, as many of us have done, to suggest that the Report could do other than make the north-east of England nearer, in terms of transport, to other conurbations in the Kingdom than they are at the moment. This is its purpose. There may be parts of the country where people would be adversely affected, but not the North-Feast. The North-East must gain.

Mr. Hooson: I do not know that hon. Members from the North-East would agree with the hon. Member. Certainly it is not true of the other areas that I mentioned. I do not claim to have special knowledge of the North-East, but it seems to me that to take away

the transport system on the one hand without considering—

Mr. Bourne-Arton: It is being added to.

Mr. Hooson: It is being cut down very considerably.
I should now like to make a special plea on behalf of those areas which are suffering from depopulation—that is, where they have not only actual unemployment but concealed unemployment in the form of depopulation due not to the decline of industry but to the complete absence of industry. We have heard from the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) about the plight of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and the same applies to Mid-Wales and parts of the south-west of England. It does not appear to me that there exists any intention on the part of the Government to give any real help to our rural areas in trying to arrest depopulation or in attempting to change the haphazard pattern of population resulting from arbitrary movements in the course of our history.
I can cite the example of my area in Mid-Wales. We suffer from high unemployment in some small towns and a continual loss of population as employment facilities become less and less. Successive Governments, whatever their political complexions, since the war have refused to give the kind of financial assistance that has been given to development areas and development districts. The only help from the Government which is available to an area such as Mid-Wales comes from the development fund which was set up under the Development and Road Improvements Fund Act, 1909. Occasionally, out of that fund, the Government provide a factory for letting to incoming industrialists, and, even so, this kind of help is usually reluctantly given.
Such help, even when it is given, is a very modest inducement when compared with the inducements now offered to firms to establish themselves in development districts, and it means that an area such as ours is competing at a complete disadvantage.
I ask the President of the Board of Trade to apply his mind to the eventual pattern of population which he wants to see in this country. Do the Government want to see accentuated and continuing


the flow of population from our peripheral areas to the south-east of England, or do they want to see our underdeveloped areas such as the Highlands, the south-west of England and my own area of Mid-Wales also developed? They have many social amenities, and, for the sake of our country as a whole, it is highly desirable that they should be soundly developed.
We are still waiting for a sign of a real policy for regional rejuvenation from the Government, and there is no real sign of their even acknowledging the need for checking the drift to the south-east of England. In truth, there does not exist in the Government an overall policy for the proper distribution of population and employment, involving, of course, a consideration of all the factors such as transport, overpsill and rural development.
If some of our areas are not to become totally depressed, and if the rest of the country is not to become intolerably overcrowded, we shall have to have a sound policy and agree to spend considerable sums of money to establish new magnet areas of attraction and development in each region. In order to do this, it will be necessary to provide at least as high a standard of amenities there as is offered elsewhere.
I give one example. I am not an expert on the north of England, but I understand that in the north of England, although it accounts for only 30 per cent. of the population, there are 60 per cent. of the slums. That is a social problem. If we do not have adequate social investment and amenities, we shall not eventually change the pattern of population distribution.
Our country's needs in future generations demand of any Government now a vigorous radical programme of regional rejuvenation. We cannot afford to continue to neglect our under-developed areas. The Bill helps in the present situation, but it is a short-term Measure and does not begin to tackle the long-term problem facing this country.

11.44 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: I agree with one point in the carefully prepared speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), when he spoke of the context of the Bill. There seems to

be a depressing unwillingness in the Board of Trade to accept migration as evidence of a persistent high level of unemployment, simply because it is not represented in the figures. Men and women have to leave distant areas to get work in other parts because there is unemployment in the places from which they go. To say that because these movements are not reflected in the figures they are not evidence of unemployment is quite unrealistic.
Otherwise, I welcome the Bill. It is a significant improvement in the Government's policy for assisting and industrialising our more distant areas. This is not an investment which the Government will regret. The grants for building and for the tooling of these factories will be repaid with interest through the quality and soundness of the work done. I hope that there is no feeling that this is an unsound investment in any way by the Government, because although the returns may come slowly, they will come, nonetheless.
There are one or two specific points on which I should appreciate guidance. The first is the question of retooling factories which are already established within a development district. Many of these factories have old plant which are not capable of producing at competitive rates and which, in addition, lose many hours of potential production through mechanical breakdowns of one kind or another. Are the grants under this scheme available for replacing old plant which would not necessarily be instrumental in bringing about immediate expansion but would ensure the position for expansion in the future?
May I illustrate the point from the experience of a firm in my constituency? Two boring mills were replaced by a large modern machine which cost approximately £27,000. The acquisition of that machine reduced substantially the cost of the work previously done on the old machines and allowed manufacture within the factory of components which previously had had to be purchased. in this case the cost of the work done in the factory was only 28 per cent. of the cost of the work purchased.
They proposed to replace an old vertical milling machine by a modern machine at a cost of about £8,000. It


has been assessed that increases in productivity over that range of work varying from a minimum of 37 per cent. to a maximum of 108 per cent. can be achieved. This increase in productivity, taking due account of variations in production quantities per annum of components involved, produces an average reduction in manufacturing costs of 41 per cent.
These examples show the benefit to be gained in the use of modern equipment. As the manager of the factory says, it is only by producing the best design in the best quality at a competitive price that we can hope to expand our exports and to ensure employment and prosperity. Is it still, therefore, to be the case that industry will be asked to prove on paper when it buys new plant that such purchases will be instrumental in increasing the labour force?
Clause 2 represents a considerable difference for one or two firms in my constituency. Some of these firms stand to gain less under this Clause than they stood to gain through negotiations conducted under the 1960 Act. Is the figure for the help which they can now receive in respect of building and extensions of buildings a fixed and standard figure or will it be negotiable in the same way as it was under the 1960 Act?

11.49 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) made a most effective point when he said that unemployment in the areas to which the Bill refers is never truly revealed because of the extent of migration, and that the need to attract new industries, therefore, appears to be less than would be the case if the people by the sheer force of economic circumstances were not compelled to tear themselves up by their roots and transplant themselves to where the jobs are. With that I agree very much.
The reason why we are discussing this Bill is that it has been shown that Conservative freedom does not work. This is a small, puny Bill, and if the Minister denies that, one can only draw attention to the amount he is expecting to spend this year. With the additional powers the Bill gives him, he will spend £24 million M bringing new employment to the areas

of high and persistent unemployment—and that is against £41 million last year.
I notice the Parliamentary Secretary shaking his head. Then we ought to know whether a Supplementary Estimate will be introduced. We have barely got rid of the Budget. This is May, and we had the Budget in April, and now we have the Parliamentary Secretary contending that this figure is not the right one. It is obvious that we must have a Supplementary Estimate. But even if one is brought in, what will it do?
We were told recently that to provide 82,000 new jobs it had cost £78 million. If the Parliamentary Secretary doubles the present provision of £24 million and makes it £48 million, that will provide only about 50,000 jobs at the rate at which it has cost to provide jobs over the last 12 or 18 months. We ought therefore to know whether the Board of Trade really thinks it will be able to make a substantial contribution towards reducing the level of unemployment in the North-East, Scotland and other areas with the Bill.
It is only three years since we had the last Measure, and that was supposed to do what this Bill is supposed to do. It was supposed to rescue the areas of high unemployment. It was brought in to provide jobs, and it has not provided them. Unemployment has gone up. To show how sadly out the estimate was, unemployment has risen by more than 50 per cent. since the 1960 Measure was introduced. Much as we should like to think that it would succeed, how can we accept that the Bill, welcome though it may be, will do the job that we want, which is to put into employment those now walking the streets, any more than the previous Measure has?
Under the Bill we shall be making substantial grants of public money to private interests. I do not quarrel with that; if it will provide jobs for those now out of work I welcome it. The Parliamentary Secretary said that this was a Bill to create or maintain employment and that grants would be made for this purpose. Certain railways in the North-East are to be closed down, and if they are, employment will not be maintained. If those railways could be given a grant they would remain open and employment would be maintained. Why cannot a grant be made to keep railway-


men in employment when grants can be made to private employers?
Another sore point with us is that the Bill will not allow the Board of Trade to make grants to a nationalised industry. If it did, we could have a new power station in Durham. The difference between siting the new power station in Durham and siting it where the Electricity Board finds it economic to do so is a matter of £3,500,000 spread over ten years, or £350,000 a year. A new power station in Durham would provide jobs for 10,000 miners. If we do not get a new power station in Durham, 10,000 miners will ultimately become unemployed. They can be kept in employment al the price of £35 a year—10,000 miners for £350,000 a year for ten years.
Every job the Government have provided so far under the Local Employment Act has cost about £1,000. I do not quarrel with the spending of the money, but it seems crazy to spend £1,000 a job on trying to attract new industry to give unemployed miners work when 10,000 of them can be kept in work for the very small sum of £35 a year each.
Will any grants be made to firms or contractors which decide to take advantage of the announcement by the Minister of Public Building and Works yesterday about the building of housing components in shipyards? While we welcome that announcement, we hope that it does not mean that the Government are writing off the shipbuilding industry. If there is spare capacity, it should be utilised if that can be done without in any way harming the industry's future. Will firms which are induced to take advantage of the announcement be given the necessary grants and other encouragement?
A Minister for the North-East has been appointed and he has made a very extensive and detailed tour of the area of his domain. We presume that he has seen something of the magnitude of the task which needs to be done. Will not Lord Hailsham's plan, when it is published, require Amendments to this very modest Bill? If the talks which the noble Lord has had with the Cabinet have in any way influenced the Cabinet, and his suggestions have been embraced in the Bill, it is obvious that his appointment has been purposeless, because it will take something much bigger and

more serious than this Bill to solve the problems of the North-East and Scotland.
We need a real plan. We need real imagination. Old industries are dying, and new industries, planned in a proper manner, must be taken to these areas. If they cannot be persuaded to go there as a result of appeals by the Government to private enterprise, the Government must take the necessary action. It is because I do not think that the Government have either the foresight or the courage to tackle the job in the manner in which it needs to be tackled that I hope that it will not be long before the British nation is able to pass judgment upon them. When it does I am satisfied that the present Government will no longer occupy the benches opposite, and that the responsibility for dealing with these areas will be put in the hands of people with the necessary courage and imagination to make a much more strenuous and determined attempt to solve the problem.

12.2 a.m.

Mr. Forbes Hendry: I know that the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) will not expect me to elaborate the troubles of the North-East, which have been dealt with at considerable length tonight. At this late hour I will resist the temptation to deal with the very interesting and attractive speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), except to say that his speech rather reminded me of somebody telling a man with a leaky boat to buy a new boat, when what that man really wants is to stop up the holes in the boat. That is what the Bill seems to do, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend in producing a sound job of work.
The speech of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) typified the approach of hon. Members opposite to this problem. We had a long dissertation about what powers could be made use of under the present legislation, and what the developer could do. That is all very well if one is in the ivory tower of London, where these problems do not exist, but business men cannot afford that. They want a practical solution to the problem. The Bill supplies that.
My right hon. Friend may be interested to know that I have had a letter


from a constituent of mine, who says:
I cannot let the occasion of the new Budget pass without dropping you a line to express my thanks for the trouble you have taken in connection with my building grant application. The new Budget will simplify our application, or at least the amount of the grant we shall get. You will no doubt be glad to know that we have placed the order for the buildings and we are expecting work to commence next week.
That is one instance of the kind which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned in his opening speech. There is no doubt that in the minds of developers and potential developers the Bill lets them know where they stand. I am sure that in the development districts the Bill will have the repercussions that my right hon. Friend wants.
At the same time, there are one or two aspects of the Bill about which I should like a little clarification. I was interested to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Bill is designed not only to provide employment but to prevent unemployment. I hope that he will make that fact clear to industrialists in the development districts and potential entrants into the development districts. They should be told that if they are prepared to carry out extensions and renewals for the purpose of preventing unemployment in these areas their applications will be welcomed. I found that there was a great lack of knowledge about this. My hon. Friend and neighbour, the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) has already spoken about dwindling populations and migration from these areas, and anything which my right hon. Friend can do to make it clear that the Bill is intended to prevent that sort of thing will do a great deal of good.
I now come to the building grants, which seem to me to be far too limited in their application. We have had a certain amount of talk tonight about second-hand buildings, and it seems to me that this is a very important subject. There are in the country a great many disused industrial and similar buildings, very largely in the development districts, which are capable of being made usable. But it appears from the Bill that the only grant that can be had is for the

adaptation of these buildings in order to make them suitable for use.
It may well be that an industrialist finds that in a development district there are excellent buildings already available. Whether he takes over one of those buildings or builds a completely new one seems to be of the very greatest importance under the Bill as drafted. Of course, if he erects a new building he will get the 25 per cent. grant, but if he buys a building which is rapidly deteriorating it seems to me that under the Bill he will get no grant at all. I ask my right hon. Friend very seriously to consider that point and to see what he can do to make sure that, where possible, such buildings are used.
I agree that safeguards are necessary as, otherwise, there might be "fiddles". It might be possible for an industrialist to "discover" that he had a disused building and to buy it for himself through one of his subsidiaries. This, I suggest, is something which it is perfectly possible to safeguard against and it is equally possible to make sure that if existing buildings are used no dishonesty is involved, and that the developer gets the advantage of using an existing building instead of having to build a new one.
The second matter that we are anxious about concerns the provisions about machinery and plant which are to be excluded under the Bill. In the Explanatory Memorandum we find that certain types of movable plant are definitely to be excluded. I can well understand the reason for that, but in applying the exclusion. the administrative action described in the Explanatory Memorandum, I would ask my right hon. Friend to adopt an understanding attitude.
It is very easy to say that something is a vehicle and that it should not rank for grant. But there are certain items of plant which are movable and which are, strictly speaking, vehicles and essential parts of a manufacturing process. There are such things as fork-lift trucks which are an essential part of a factory's plant. Such vehicles could be put on a lorry and taken elsewhere, but I suggest that adequate safeguards should be provided to make sure that the grant was pulled back in the event of plant being removed elsewhere.
Details of plant in individual factories are, after all, given in the returns made


to the Inland Revenue. There is no reason why similar returns should not be made annually, or whenever necessary, to the Board of Trade showing what plant is in a factory. This would prevent any fiddles. Generally speaking, I think that the Bill is an excellent Measure, that a lot of thought will nave to be given to it in detail, and I commend it to the House.

12.10 a.m.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I hope that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) gets answers to some of his questions. But there is one question to which, despite the flexibility of the mind of the President of the Board of Trade, there will be no answer, and that is is the question of migration. In Northern Ireland there is a lesson to be learned by anyone who is worried about this matter. The best thing to do is to encourage people to stay at home so that the level of unemployment is raised. If people are encouraged to migrate from an area, the amount of unemployment will not be sufficient for the area to qualify for assistance. This is the problem which faces many of the Highland areas and Border counties. There is not a sufficient volume of unemployment to bring the areas within the terms of the Local Employment Act.
Unhappily, this is not the case in my constituency. Even with migration we still have a high level of unemployment and we are not dissimilar to other areas in Scotland. We have 3,000 permanently unemployed out of a working force of 53,000 and an annual migration of 1,000 of our best young skilled workers. That is the terrible story of my constituency under the Tories. It was not like that before the Tories came to power, and before a brake was put upon the development programmes which did so much to improve the locality after the war. The tragedy is that the Government have monkeyed about with the Distribution of Industry Acts and replaced them with a series of local employment Measures which have done a lot of damage to the natural flow of development which would have taken place since the end of the war.
To me it seems comical, having been a member of this House during the winter of 1959 and the early months of 1960, during the debates on the Local Employment Act—which is the parent of this

Bill—to hear some of the speeches of hon. Gentlemen and indeed hon. Ladies opposite on the subject. One would imagine that we all agreed to the various provisions in the Acts and that only suddenly has the revelation come to us.
Take, for example, the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). Through the Northumbrian mists of argument that we heard I managed to perceive several points. One was the argument about development areas as opposed to development districts. Did not we hammer that home during the debates on the Measure until the early hours of the morning, as we are doing now? Did not we argue that it was not possible to have patchwork and pinpointed patterns of development districts; that we had to have regional areas, perhaps not so large as recognised regions in the country, but at least something of that order, rather than little communities dotted about here and there.
But the hon. Lady voted for that Measure. I do not remember the hon. Lady—

Mr. Thomas Fraser: And she did not vote for our Amendment.

Dr. Mabon: No, she did not vote for our Amendment, which is even more important. She voted for the Measure and I do not remember her objecting, although she had ample opportunity, because we put down a series of Amendments on this matter in order to indicate the appalling anomalies which would arise. In any case, it does not matter, because the Government are still not listening either to our arguments or to the arguments of the hon. Lady. She may try to move an Amendment during the Committee stage and if she does, she will get our support. We shall attempt to move Amendments, in which case the hon. Lady can support us. But I do not think that the Government will budge. The Government take a long time to learn from their errors.
In this Bill we have a replacement for the former Section 3 (2) which might be called the "Eccles Formula" devised by the then President of the Board of Trade before the General Election of 1959. This was the "Charter of Eccles" to solve the unemployment problem with Tory promises. One might


have thought that there had been no unemployment until then. In fact, unemployment had reached a serious peak and the Government, faced with a General Election, had to do something to prove to the electorate that they intended to improve the situation. The "Eccles Formula" was a bamboozling formula for any businessman to try to understand. We said during the Committee stage that the formula was too difficult to understand. How many of us have had experience of businessmen asking for advice about the proper way to approach D.A.T.A.C. or B.O.T.A.C. in order to obtain a loan? They found that they did not understand the formula and that it took too long to get an answer from the Board of Trade to help them on their way.
There are firms in my constituency—small firms, which could ill afford even to apply—which, once bitten, are now twice shy about applying to the Board of Trade for further help. The other day, I went to a meeting of directors of a small firm in my constituency which spent £500 in applying to the Board of Trade far aid and did not get it. If only they had known before starting, they would never have spent the money or raised false hopes among their fellow directors and workmen, whom they have faithfully employed during the most difficult times of their working lives in Greenock.
I admit that a number of good suggestions have been made in this three-hour debate, but because of the time at which it is being held, it is a very unsatisfactory debate. Members of the House of Commons are being treated as shabbily as the unemployed in having to have the Second Reading of a Bill of this nature at this time of night. I understand from some of my hon. Friends that we are compelled to follow this procedure because of the Whips and the Government and that had we objected, we might not have got the Bill for many weeks.
I strongly dissent from this procedure. We should be making reasonably sound and, perhaps, long speeches, saying what we consider the legislation should be. In 1967, if, unhappily, the Government are still in power, we shall have to discuss another Local Employment Bill, because

the 1960 Act will have expired. That means that we must go through all this process again. Knowing the Government as we do, this is probably the only Bill that we shall have on this subject in the present Parliament, or, indeed, the next three years. Even in the next Parliament, we shall have to wait before we can discuss another Local Employment Bill.
It is wrong that at this time of night we should be making Second Reading speeches on a Bill of this kind. It is not a defence that because the Bill contains few provisions, it is reasonable to take it at this hour, because Second Reading speakers should have the opportunity to make points of amplification, adding to and improving the Bill.
The way that the Government have managed to encumber the House with Bills and Acts is noticeable. Under the old Distribution of Industry Acts, we were able to have large sums of money, such as the £50 million for the Ravenscraig steel mill and, I believe, some money involved with the financing of the graving dock at Greenock. Since the Government have repealed those Acts, we have had to have the North Atlantic Shipping Act and the Fort William Pulp and Paper Mills Bill to dispose of large sums of money for these specific projects. Why cannot it all be administered through a central Act rather than undergo the whole process of discussing these Bills? If the Government are complaining about business clogging their time and this being a reason why we are discussing this critical Bill at this time of night, they should wake themselves up and find a Bill which provides a better vehicle.
Having said that, I will make one or two points about the Bill in detail. I agree very much with what the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) said about old buildings. This applies to many old industrial communities. I hope that we will be given an explanation of what is said in Clause 2 (3) about the adaptation of existing buildings. We may have to be given amplification about whether, in various ways, provision will be given for the cost of acquiring or adapting old buildings. This must be cleared up in Committee.
Another matter that will require clearing up in Committee is the definition of "industrial buildings." I think that the


Parliamentary Secretary referred to making allowance for foundations in certain difficult terrains. I wonder whether the definition will involve, not only the work in shipyards mentioned by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth but work in relation to docks. As I understand it, even under Section 271 of the Income Tax Act, 1952, and reading Section 21 of the Local Employment Act, 1960, there is some dubiety whether or not docks can be included in the term "industrial buildings"—

Dame Irene Ward: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised this point, because when I raised it in a Question earlier in the week I got the satisfactory reply from the President of the Board of Trade that there was this uncertainty, and he undertook to move an Amendment to the Bill to make quite sure that the structural part of a dock would qualify for grant. If I may say so, I was not at all sure when I put down the Question that it would help my part of the world, because my dockyard does not happen to be in a development district. But I think that the hon. Gentleman's dockyard will get the benefit of the Question I asked.

Dr. Mabon: I very much appreciate that information although, until I actually see the Amendment on the Notice Paper, I shall not accept it as satisfactory—nor, I am sure, will the hon. Lady.
It is terribly important that we should get a clear definition. In Section 21, where the word "article" is used, the substitution of "ship" is allowed, so that one is in the peculiar position in that Section of talking about grants that can he made for the
… altering repairing … of any article …
that is to say, a ship, yet there is no specific reference to docks, and if one reads it in terms of a building one sees that it can be construed as not being a form of dock. This is, perhaps, a matter that affects the shipbuilding and shipping rivers and, therefore, in view of what the hon. Lady has said, it is all the more important that the President of the Board of Trade should make it clear.
There are two points affecting these rivers on which I should appreciate an answer. First, I should like clarification of the position of dry docks. Do they get the advantages of the Bill in being defined as industrial buildings? Secondly,

there is the recent suggestion of the Minister of Public Building and Works that some of the capacity of the shipyards might be used for the making of prefabricated houses. These are two important and practical matters on which we should have answers.
I hope that my hon. Friends on the Standing Committee—and I hope to be a member of it, too—will have an opportunity to table Amendments and, by that vehicle, invite hon. Members opposite who have criticised the Bill to join us. It is not fair of them to make complaints on certain scores about their own Government unless they are prepared to carry their protest to the Division Lobby, which seems to be an eminently sound doctrine. I take with a great pinch of salt many of the things that have been said by hon. Members opposite in criticism of their own President of the Board of Trade.
I think that the 1960 Local Employment Act has been a bad one, and it does not fully replace the Distribution of Industry Act. I do not think that this Bill will amend these defects, and I look forward to the day when we will completely recast the distribution of industry policy—but, of course, we will have to await a Labour Government.

12.24 a.m.

Mr. W. T. Rodgers: I very much agree with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) about the unsuitability of having a debate of this sort at this time of night. I would have hoped that the Government, despite their proper anxiety to get the Measure through, might have found time for a more serious debate than this one has had to be. At this stage, I find myself concerned with endorsing views already expressed, mainly about the whole context in which we are considering the Bill.
One thing that emerged from the extraordinary exchange between the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) and the hon. Member for Darling. ton (Mr. Bourne-Arton) was that the hon. Lady did not think very much of the development district policy. This is certainly something to which one can return time and time again and it vitiates a great deal of what one might believe is merit in the Bill.
More often than not, attention is


drawn to the fact that there are areas which are not in development districts but which nevertheless should qualify for the treatment given to special districts. I am more concerned about areas scheduled as development districts which, because of the nature of this policy, will never be viable and where we are encouraging investment which will lead to false hopes about permanent employment when the main aim should be the encouragement of development in much larger travel-to-work areas. This is the other side of the view that the present policy of development districts leads to important areas being left out which deserve this special treatment.
On the question of stop-go policy in the development districts, I was interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). I asked the President of the Board of Trade yesterday the average continuous periods for which districts scheduled since 1960 under the Act and since descheduled have remained effectively development districts. He replied that the average period was fourteen months before being stop-listed, and on average a further nine months have elapsed before districts have been removed from the lists. In other words, the average period for the districts remaining qualified under the Act has been rather under two years.
In view of this information and of the other things said, I wonder whether it would not be better to decide that an area once scheduled would remain within the Act for a minimum of two years and possibly three years. It seems to me that this would encourage more intelligent and forceful development than we can expect when there is uncertainty about the point when the area is placed on the stop list and then removed altogether from the terms of the Act.
On the broad context of the Bill, I should be much happier if we could see the Government moving towards some more coherent regional planning. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) had some interesting things to say on this, and other hon. Members have drawn attention to the importance of linking transport developments to industrial development, I would hope, looking at the criticism in the

N.E.D.C. report of the development districts policy, that the Board of Trade is now very seriously thinking of setting up much more ambitious regional development boards which will investigate far more closely than is now done the real needs of particular areas.
There is a great deal to be said for trying to designate, however informally, certain pioneer industries which may be very appropriate to certain parts of the country but not to others. I find that there is still a remarkable failure on the part of the Government to foresee or attempt to foresee the likely industrial needs of any area. By this I do not mean only areas of high unemployment. We need a regional policy which affects the country as a whole, whether areas of high unemployment or areas of comparative prosperity. Even if this Measure is part of a policy towards areas of high unemployment which we can welcome, I have grave doubts whether any measures will be sufficient until we get the machinery right.
Even if in the course of the debate it has not been possible to discuss these broader issues in any detail, and even if the President of the Board of Trade in reply will be unable to give any clear indication of Government intention, I hope nevertheless that the Government will Look at the future of regional planning and attempt to foresee industrial developments as far as ten or fifteen years ahead in a way they do not now.
I am not asking for a dogmatic approach to this. I think we all appreciate the limits of forecasting. We all realise there is an unexpected element which one cannot anticipate in trying to plan the industrial future of the country. I think that this was the experience of my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) during his time at the Board of Trade. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, a little more thought and imagination and an attempt to look beyond the narrow limitations of one piece of legislation, about which we may have doubts in any case, would give us a little more hope that in the end something substantial will be done to remove not simply a short-term problem, which will probably be eased in the autumn, but the long-term problem of declining areas.

12.31 a.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: I begin by agreeing that this is a very unsatisfactory time of night at which to hold a debate of this kind. I have a personal reason for saying that, as I was involved in the debate on the previous Bill and I have been on this bench for about nine hours. Apart from that, I think that in general terms a subject of this importance ought to be discussed in an all-day debate, and it is unsatisfactory that that has not been the case.
Despite the lateness of the hour, we have had a series of speeches which have raised an enormous variety of practical points, many of them local and many of general application, and certainly they have given the President of the Board of Trade a number of detailed points on which to reply. I want to add only one detailed point and then to make a general observation on the Bill.
One of my hon. Friend mentioned the fact that the Local Employment Act, 1960, is due to expire in 1967. I would assume—and I should like the President of the Board of Trade to comment on this—that this Bill will also expire at the same time. It is so clearly tied up with the 1960 Act and it uses definitions contained in that Act. It is said that the two Measures may be cited together, so presumably they will expire together, and in that sense we are dealing with something which is intended to be of a four-year duration and nothing more. I hope that that point can be clarified.
Throughout the speechs of hon. Members on both sides of the House there has run what I would describe as a note of healthy scepticism. Hon. Members on both sides have been wondering what effect this Bill will have, and have expressed doubts. I pose the Question, which I do not think has been satisfactorily answered either in the Budget debates or in the Parliamentary Secretary's speech: what impact is this new piece of legislation likely to have on the problem of unemployment? What is the scale of extra help which is proposed by these new formulae? Is this really a major Measure which is going to have any kind of impact on the problem, or is it merely a piece of window-dressing? Our scepticism, our tendency to regard it as a piece of

window-dressing, is based on three things. First, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said, the power to do these things seems to be in the Government's hands already. Section 4 of the 1960 Act gives the Board of Trade power to make loans or grants
for the purposes of the undertaking of such amounts and on such terms and conditions as may be recommended …
In other words, if the Board of Trade wanted to make standard grants of 25 per cent. towards buildings and if it wanted to make grants of 10 per cent. towards plant or machinery, it would seem to us that it only needed to announce this as policy under the terms of Section 4 of the 1960 Act and would not require new legislation for the purpose. This underlines our suspicion that there is some window-dressing in this rather than the development of any major new steps.
The second reason for our scepticism is the date, the fact that we are getting closer to a General Election and passing through a period when the Government like to put certain things in the shop window. I think it was Dr. Johnson who said that the thought that he was about to be hanged concentrated a man's mind wonderfully. Their impending defeat at the General Election certainly tends to make the Government go in for gestures of one sort and another.
The third reason for our scepticism is the obscurity about how much extra financial help will be channelled into helping projects for employment. The grants of 25 per cent. under Clause 2 will replace the old system under which, we are told, the average grant was 17 per cent., and it seems, therefore, that some extra money will flow. To that extent it is welcome. It is welcome also in the sense that it is a clearer and more simple formula which will give a firm a clearer indication of what it is entitled to expect.
Clause 1, which provides for the 10 per cent. grants, is said to be something new which, in many cases, will apply in addition to the B.O.T.A.C. loans or grants which are already available under the old scheme; but here also the scale of the extra help is very much in doubt.


In the House on 4th April last the President of the Board of Trade said:
We shall have to put a ceiling as we do at present, on the total assistance available under the Act for individual projects where the cost to public funds is too high in relation to the number of jobs to be provided.… In the majority of cases there will also be room for B.O.T.A.C. loans and grants available under Section 4 of the present Act."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1963; Vol. 92, c. 661.]
But it is still suggested that in many cases there will not be both B.O.T.A.C. grants and these grants. The right hon. Gentleman's reference to a ceiling also leaves us feeling that there may not be very much involved. The Parliamentary Secretary used similar words in moving the Second Reading today.
We have to put all this against the fact that the Estimates submitted by the President of the Board of Trade for this current year are much lower than the Estimates for last year, £24 million against £41 million, which does not suggest an expansion of aid under the various headings we are discussing.

Mr. Brewis: Will the hon. Gentleman compare it also with the £500,000 under the Labour Government?

Mr. Prentice: No, I will not. The Labour Government approached this matter by very different methods, which have been described by my hon. Friends, and with a great deal more success in maintaining full employment than has been evidenced in the past twelve months. What we are considering is the relation of this Bill with the situation of unemployment now, and the question whether it will make any difference or not. I thought that the hon. Gentleman himself, among others, was to some extent sceptical, and understandably so, about its effect.
Next, there is the vagueness of the Explanatory Memorandum on the financial effects. It is simply said that these could not be estimated. Of course, in legislation of this kind precise financial effects cannot be estimated. No one knows the number of applications, the exact nature of them, and so on; but the Government must have some idea in their mind in order to produce their Estimates. We should be told more in the reply about the type of estimates they have in mind and the scale of extra

help so that we may see whether this Bill is something which will have an impact or is simply changing the formula, putting in a piece of window-dressing, for political purposes.

Mr. Fernyhough: The Parliamentary Secretary said that there had been sixty additional applications compared with the previous period. He ought to be able to tell us at least how much extra those sixty applications would cost if they were granted.

Mr. Prentice: I think that my hon. Friend is correct and that we could be told rather more about the practical effects which the Bill is expected to have.
We discuss it against the background of an appalling total of unemployed. The figure of 640,000 is about twice as many unemployed as that which has persisted for a greater part of the period since the end of the war. It is a figure which has been purged completely of the effects of the bad weather. It represents at least 300,000 unnecessary cases of human frustration and misery and economic waste.
It is against the background of the failure of the 1960 Act and all other Government policies that we have to measure the Bill. I repeat what my right hon. Friend said in opening the debate from this side of the House: that whatever the merits of the Bill—and we are not against it, because if there is anything in these proposed new Measures, however modest, we are for them—it must not be regarded as a substitute for those other policies which we have been urging again and again from this side of the House and which the Government have failed to adopt. They include a much more positive use of industrial development certificates. In this connection, the figures for the first quarter of this year are disappointing. They show, for example, that in the London area there has been just as much floor space allowed as in the northern area, and in the Midlands area more has been allowed than in Scotland.
We require a much more definite policy about office development than is contained in the Bill presented by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. We require a regional strategy, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon).


Above all, we require a commitment to growth targets and economic expansion without which all these policies will fail.
We regard the Bill, therefore, as a Measure which on the face of it will not take us very much further towards the full employment policies which ought to be pursued. It is interesting that hon. Members have wondered whether the Bill may become superfluous in view of the legislative authority which the Government already have. Whether it is or is not superfluous, it is no substitute for policies which are still lacking. Every hon. Member who has spoken, from both sides of the House and from local areas of unemployment, has underlined that the Government's policies for many years have failed, and in the last twelve months have failed worse than at any other time since the end of the war, and that something new and much more drastic is required to deal with the situation.

12.43 a.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): A number of interesting points have been raised during the debate, some of them applying particularly to the Bill and others going far wider than the Bill. I will try to deal with as many as I can, but I hope that the House will forgive me if at this late hour I do not try to deal fully with every interesting argument which has been raised during the three-hour debate.
I do not pretend that every detail of administration of the Bill has been worked out fully, and that is why I have been particularly interested in what hon. Members have said. But even where the details have been worked out, I shall gladly accept changes where I believe that they will represent improvements. In reply to the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), the Bill will expire in 1967, in common with Part I of the parent Act, which is due to expire in that year. I am sorry that the hon. Member suggested that the Bill was perhaps a bit of political window-dressing and that he was sceptical about it. It is a useful little Measure, and I assure hon. Members that we should not waste their time in introducing the Bill merely for window-dressing.

Mr. T. Fraser: The 1960 Act?

Mr. Erroll: I am surprised that the hon. Member refers to the 1960 Act. A

much better example is the 1958 Act, which was described at the time as window-dressing by hon. Members opposite but which has been much welcomed by the many people who have benefited from it. The 1960 Act was its logical successor, and those who have benefited from the 80,000 new jobs provided as a result of that Act know whether it was window-dressing or a means of producing jobs for people where they were needed.

Mr. Fraser: Mr. Fraser rose—

Mr. Erroll: I did not interrupt anyone and I think that I should be allowed to make my speech.

Mr. Fraser: I can speak afterwards.

Mr. Erroll: The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) asked whether the new powers are necessary. It is necessary to look rather closely at the 1960 Act, but I assure him that we should not be asking the House for powers if we already had those powers under existing legislation.
It is true that Section 4 of the present Act gives me power to make grants as well as loans on the recommendation—this is the point—of the Advisory Committee; but the size of any grant or loan under that Section is recommended by the Committee and I have no power to vary its recommendation. I can only accept it or reject it.
Section 4 is designed to enable the Advisory Committee to produce recommendations tailor-made to suit the needs of each individual applicant. I know that the right hon. Gentleman may point out that the Board of Trade can, with the consent of the Treasury, give general directions to B.O.T.A.C., but these are only general directions in regard to terms and conditions and not specific to individual applications. The amount of a grant, or, for that matter, a loan, is not a term or condition and, therefore, it would not be possible under the Act to make a direction to B.O.T.A.C. of the sort which it would be necessary to make in order to give effect to the powers we are asking for in the Bill.

Mr. Jay: That does not really seem to answer the point. Surely it would be possible under Section 4 of the 1960 Act to give instructions, far instance, to the Advisory Committee normally to offer grants of 25 per cent, for the purposes of building, with perhaps some discretion


to go beyond that where it chose. Why should not that be done?

Mr. Erroll: I am advised that it would be ultra vires and it would not be possible to give a direction of that type. If it had been possible we should have done it in that way, but it would not have been possible to achieve the object we desire. That is why this part of the Bill is necessary. The matter can doubtless be taken up at a later stage of the Bill, but that is what I am advised. The directions can only be general relating to terms and conditions—rates of interest, interest-free periods, the terms and conditions of a loan, and the like. It would not be possible to give a direction of the sort the right hon. Gentleman has suggested. The legal experts have so advised, and that is why has been necessary to have these Clauses in the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) raised an important point. He was concerned about applications for new building grants and whether they would apply to offers which had already been made. The answer to his point is that "an offer made" means "an offer made", and it is immaterial whether the offer has been accepted or not if the offer had been made before 3rd April. There obviously has to be a point where one starts the new arrangements, and in the case of building grants in particular the offer may have been made many months before it is actually taken up, and so if we were not to have a fixed date of 3rd April we should find ourselves faced with an unpredictable and possibly large amount of expenditure in relation to offers made some time ago and not taken up. Those firms which had taken up their offers promptly would to that extent be penalised in relation to firms which had been laggardly, because they would not be able to get the increased benefit.
The subject of dry docks was raised by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North and by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). The Board of Trade has already been approached by companies concerned with building dry docks about the possibility of getting the 25 per cent. building grant. In answer to a Question yesterday, my hon. Friend the Parlia-

mentary Secretary told my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth that I have been advised that there was some doubt about whether under the 1960 Act a dry dock was legally eligible for a building grant. After all, one could argue that it was a hole in the ground and not a building. These are complicated matters of legal definition.
We want to include dry docks and we are therefore making doubly certain by introducing an Amendment to the Bill in Committee on this point in due course. The building grant will apply to the structural part of the dry dock and, in addition, plant and machinery installed in and around the dry dock as part of the installation will be eligible for the 10 per cent. grant introduced by the Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to office buildings. Where they provide additional employment, they will be eligible for the 25 per cent. grant. The point is that the Bill does not in the main change the principle of building grants. It merely alters the method and what was eligible for grant before will be eligible under the Bill.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Reverting to dry docks and the allowance for the structural part of dry docks, may I take it that in the Amendment it will be made clear what is meant by the structural part of the dry docks, or holes in the ground?

Mr. Erroll: I think that we can deal with that more fully when we come to the Committee stage. I appreciate that a large part of the work of building a dry dock is digging out the hole before starting to build the stone and concrete liners around it, but perhaps that aspect of the matter can be discussed more fully in Committee.
The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) asked whether the nationalised industries, like the National Coal Board, British Railways and possibly the Central Electricity Generating Board, would have grants made available. No grants will be made available to them, because all their financial needs are met by separate legislation and it would be a matter of paying part out of one pocket and part out of another. There would be no advantage to the concern in being paid partly through the medium of the Bill.
Several hon. Members referred to the reduction in the Estimates.

Mr. Jay: While the right hon. Gentleman is considering the eligibility of different undertakings for grants, will he tell us about public enterprises, the nationalised industries?

Mr. Erroll: Without wishing to give offence to the right hon. Gentleman, I was dealing with that in reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow. I think that I have covered it.

Mr. Fernyhough: If a branch line is to close and a local authority decides that it wants to buy it, would it get a grant towards maintaining a public service which would not otherwise exist?

Mr. Erroll: This is becoming rather like "Twenty Questions". I could not answer all these complicated hypothetical questions without longer notice, but at first glance I would say that that case would not be eligible for grant. I do not see that a second-hand branch line could in any way be construed as a building.
Some hon. Members referred to the Estimates having gone down while others said that we did not seem able to make accurate Estimates for the future. To deal with past Estimates first; the reduction from £41 million for 1962–63 to £24 million for 1963–64 does not reflect any reduction in the Government's determination to help the development districts. It reflects something quite different. The actual expenditure in any financial year arises almost entirely from offers made in earlier years. There is a time lag of one, two, or sometimes three years from the date of an offer being made which gives rise to the estimate and the expenditure being incurred.
Thus, the £41 million included a substantial amount in respect of large motor projects to which assistance was offered in 1961, and for which a much lower level of expenditure will arise in 1963–64, as these are coming into operation. Indeed, one is due to be opened tomorrow, or, perhaps I should say, today. It does not follow that there will be another large motor works coming forward in addition to those already created.
The reduction to £24 million reflects a reduction in applications in the last twelve months. Conversely, if we secure an increased rate of expansion and movement to development districts in the pre-

sent year, this will be reflected in the Estimates for the year 1964–65. As for the future, we have stated honestly, in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, that
It is impossible to make a meaningful estimate of the amount of the charge on public funds.
If hon. Members will reflect they will see that we cannot tell at this stage how industry will react to the proposals contained in the Bill, particularly as it will be coupled with the system of free depreciation which my right hon. Friend outlined in his Budget speech. We are naturally hopeful that substantial use will be made of these facilities, but, as the Memorandum states, we cannot make a meaningful estimate. To put forward an estimate which could be no more than a guess, with no experience or precise knowledge at this stage, would be to mislead the House, which I do not wish to do.
The hon. Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas) apologised to me for having to leave before the end of the debate, but I want to put on record the fact that I appreciate the importance of the point he made about special foundations for a building in an area liable to severe mining subsidence. I agree that this is a Committee point, which I should like to go into in more detail in Committee. This problem is one that we have already been studying. It is somewhat complicated, but I think that we will be able to help the hon. Member on this point, administratively, if not in the Bill itself.
Several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton), my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) and the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) raised the question of building grants being made available for second-hand buildings. I want to try to explain our attitude towards this matter. If somebody buys a second-hand factory he will be able to receive a building grant in respect of the conversion, modernisation or improvement to that building necessary to make it suitable for the new industrial occupation, so he will to that extent attract the building grant.
The hon. Members to whom I have just referred, however, suggested that in


addition the purchaser of an existing second-hand building should get a 25 per cent. grant towards the purchase price. This would not be practicable, for two reasons. First, the very fact that buildings are empty and in areas of high unemployment means that they will have a relatively low sale value, and will probably be cheaper buys than 75 per cent. of the cost of a newly erected building, erected at 1963 or 1964 building prices. An existing building will probably still be a very good bargain, as compared with a new construction.
Again, in view of the way in which the property market operates, if it were known that a purchaser of a second-hand building would automatically get a 25 per cent. grant the vendor would automatically raise his offer price so as to absorb all or part of the 25 per cent. grant that he knew the purchaser would receive. Therefore, it would not achieve any effect of value to the public and certainly not to the unemployed in the district.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Will my right hon. Friend allow me to apologise for having failed to explain the point that I was trying to make? It is that when a farsighted local authority takes over such factory buildings, it is wrong for there to be legislative undercutting, for Parliament to undercut the value of its assets. This was the simple point that I was making.

Mr. Erroll: We should not be doing that. The local authority would buy the existing building at a very low price because, as one hon. Member said, it might be a derelict building, and would be able to offer it at a price very much lower than 75 per cent. of the cost of a new construction. I think that when my hon. Friend has studied the several points that I have made on the subject he will be able to agree that what I have suggested is the right and sensible course.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Dr. Dickson Mabon rose—

Mr. Erroll: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have given way a great deal and I must get on.
Several hon. Members, in particular the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth, raised the question

of the revision of the list of development districts. Here I must stress that the Bill does not in any way alter the provisions of the 1960 Act in regard to the definition of development districts. The definition of a development district remains unchanged. It is a district in which, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, there is high and persistent unemployment.
It is said that the selection of these districts is arbitrary, that they constitute, in the words of the hon. Member for Greenock, a patchwork of pinpoints, whereas areas would be more appropriate. But the great feature of the 1960 Act is that we have been able to concentrate on localities where unemployment is greatest. The disadvantage of the former development areas was that in them there were areas of high prosperity and also areas of comparatively severe unemployment. It was not possible under the earlier legislation, good though it was in its day, to deal with the localities of high unemployment because the area had to be treated as a single whole. The reference made by the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. W. T. Rodgers) to the average length of time of a locality being a development district bears out that point.
The locality is scheduled, and if and when several new projects are set up it is quite properly descheduled, the Act having done its stuff and a high level of employment having been restored. It may have to be scheduled again, but that is the great merit of the Act. It is flexible and deals with the situation of unemployment in the districts concerned. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite thinks that it could be done in a better way, would he say so and tell the unemployed who have benefited from the Act why it is not any good?

Mr. Fernyhough: Is not the sole purpose of the noble Lord in another place being Minister for the North-East to look at the entire region and, presumably, to plan it and suggest remedies for its difficulties?

Mr. Erroll: Improving the entire region means improving it in many other ways than just the unemployment in it. In the north-east region there are areas of considerable prosperity, but my noble


Friend is quite properly looking at the region as a whole and the regional opportunities as a whole, and not just the employment opportunities.
My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway suggested that there should be several classes of development districts, but I think that that would add severe administrative complications to the operation of the Act.
I have tried briefly to cover some of the more important points which have been raised by hon. Members in the debate. I should like to reaffirm the success of the 1960 Act. I feel sure that, with the standard benefits proposed in the Bill, the Act will be still further strengthened. I have been considerably encouraged by the initial response from industry which certainly does not regard the Bill as being just a piece of window-dressing. The reception given to it, at least by hon. Members on this side of the House, has encouraged me still further, since it is clear that, subject to one or two minor points, it is a good Bill which is generally welcomed, and I hope that the House will accord it a Second Reading.

Mr. T. Fraser: I do not rise to fulfil the promise which I made to the right hon. Gentleman that I would make a speech after he did because he was so discourteous in declining to give way. Nor will I even trouble him with the question which I was going to put to him. But I wish to ask whether he will reply to a question which was put several times in the earlier part of the debate: why is it that the building grant will not be made available to local authorities?
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that a good many local authorities in areas of high unemployment have responded to the request which he had made many times that they should undertake to build factories speculatively and let them to industrial tenants. Some local authorities are in

the course of building these factories speculatively. They will not be able to sell them. At best, they will be able to let them to industrial tenants. Their tenants will not be getting subsidised accommodation at all, whereas the tenant of the Board of Trade in those areas will get such accommodation. Owner-occupiers of industrial premises will also get subsidised accommodation. Why does not the right hon. Gentleman extend this grant to local authorities which have responded to his pleas?

Mr. Erroll: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should think that I was discourteous in not giving way to him, but I have given way to hon. Members freely during the debate and, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, there has to be a limit if one is to proceed with a reasoned and more or less continuous discourse.
I did not think that the point which he mentioned had been raised much during the debate, and that is why I did not refer to it in passing. This Act does not change the situation. It merely makes grants available in a fixed form, whereas before they were available according to a complicated percentage formula. I am aware of the point, which was put to me before the debate. It is a matter which I am looking into to see what should be done in fairness to all.

Mr. Jay: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the efforts of Lord Hailsham. Can he tell us whether the investigations of Lord Hailsham into the North-East are still proceeding or whether his mission has been terminated?

Mr. Erroll: That question had better be put to his representative in this House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

LAND, SWANLEY (PLANNING APPEAL)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacArthur]

1.8 a.m.

Mr. Sydney Irving: I wish to raise the question of the decision of the Minister of Housing and Local Government on the planning appeal in respect of land at Goldsel Road, Swanley. The appeal site is a disused nursery garden of about 25 acres shown mainly as private open space or nursery garden in the development plan of 1958 and situated partly in the green belt. But a draft town map is in preparation and falls to be dealt with in December, 1963. The planning authority has stated that in the new town map it was likely that the appeal site would be allocated primarily for residential development and designated for compulsory purchase by the Dartford Rural District Council.
Despite the close proximity of this review, about nine months ahead, the Minister has chosen to override the Dartford Rural District Council, in whose area the land is situated, the Kent County Council, which is the planning authority, and also his own inspector, to give planning permission to a private developer, Messrs. Cooper Estates Ltd., to develop this land mainly for residential purposes. I raise the matter tonight because this decision will have the most serious consequences. These consequences will threaten some of the most beautiful country in Kent, in the Darenth Valley, and will endanger the green belt, which the Minister is pledged to protect.
The appellants submitted in their case that the inquiry was concerned with the planning appeal and that the designation was not within the terms of reference of the inquiry. The inspector found, however, as a matter of fact that to grant permission would not only constitute a substantial departure from the provisions of the development plan, but would also affect the framework of the revised town map before it could be formally presented to the Minister.
It might be asked, if this land was to be used for residential development in any event, why not now? This, however, would be a superficial and shortsighted view of planning, and particularly of

local needs, as the consequences which flow from this decision are both numerous and harmful. First, jumping the gun and allowing partial if mixed development, even if the development itself is of good quality, would prevent the integrated and proper development of the area. Secondly, and even more seriously, it creates a precedent upon which other applications can be made and granted. Thirdly, it takes no account either of local needs or of the effect upon the green belt.
Much of the surrounding area is in the green belt and the Dartford Rural District Council is responsible for satisfying the local housing needs of the green belt villages of Wilmington, Hawley, Sutton at Hone, South Darenth, Horton Kirby, Farningham, Eynsford and Crockenhill. This means that the only way that the character of these villages can be preserved and nibbling at the green belt can be prevented is by satisfying the local housing needs at Swanley, and this is what the council proposes to do.
At Swanley, 184 acres in all are available, but for the local authority there is a planning blight on all but 26 acres as most of the land to be reserved for housing development is almost entirely controlled by the private developer who was the appellant in this case. The total loss is likely to be 158 acres. If the Minister disputes this, let me tell him that already, since the appeal, an application for the development of a further 36 acres at Goldsel Road has been lodged.
The Minister has said that the council's needs would be a matter more appropriate for argument on compulsory purchase proceedings. The compulsory purchase procedure, however, is inadequate. It can be used only for current needs set in the framework of limited programmes which the Minister allows in annual allocations.
Local authorities cannot compete with private developers in the open market. They can proceed only by designation. The Minister, however, has tied the hands of the local authority by allowing this appeal before such proposals can even be presented as part of the new development plan to be submitted in December this year, while he frees a private developer to build as many houses as possible. This, therefore, leaves only 26 acres for


local needs, which can cater for only 360 families from the waiting list of 1,301. This is totally inadequate.
If the green belt is to be preserved, the population from outside the area must be restricted.
It might be argued that designation would be unfair to the private developer hut, after all, this could be argued when the town map is submitted. A great many private houses have, however, been built for sale since the war in the Dartford Rural District Council's area, and the Kent County Council stated in evidence that only in one other area in Kent had there been a bigger proportion of private houses to council houses built since the war than here. Some 5,980 private houses to 2,507 council houses have been built. In general, the balance in Kent is in the opposite direction.
In addition, the Dartford Rural District Council is offering for sale at the moment a number of its new houses, but it is clear from the response that only a small proportion of the families on the waiting list can afford to buy, despite the favourable terms offered by the council—and most of those who can afford manage only because of the ¼ per cent. deposit scheme that the council is adopting.
The Minister's decision will have a further consequence. Not only will it make it very difficult to satisfy local needs and mean that the sons and daughters of existing residents will have to leave the area, but the pressure on rail and other services will be much intensified, causing a further deterioration. The population of Swanley has doubled in ten years, and it is estimated that it will further increase, as a result of the Minister's present decision, from 11,000 to 20,000, with an additional 9,000 people living within eighteen miles of London. With private development of this kind, 7,700 of those 9,000 will come from outside the Dartford Rural District Council area. An additional 2,000, on this reckoning, will use Swanley Station each day, leading to a worsening of the very difficult conditions already existing there.
The decision represents a major departure from the development plan. It is not disputed that it will seriously inhibit the

submission of the new town map, and possibly make the proper planning development of Swanley much more difficult. It will also prevent proper attention being given to local needs, while worsening the commuter problem, which is already very acute.
The decision will place in danger areas of the green belt of the highest landscape value, and place in jeopardy many of the most attractive villages in Kent. It is clear that in over-riding the rural district council, the Kent County Council and his own inspector, the Minister has failed to show any appreciation of either the planning or the social consequences of his decision, which is to be utterly deplored. I hope that when the Parliamentary Secretary replies he will, in particular, at least be able to tell the local authority how, in these circumstances, it is to secure land to meet its urgent housing needs.

1.18 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Sydney Irving) has outlined the position of this site and its history, and I do not think that there is any need for me to repeat what he has said. As I understand it, the local authority's main problem is not whether or not this land is suitable for residential development but by whom it should be developed. It is quite true that the Kent County Council, in its initial refusal of the planning application, laid some stress on the fact that the development proposed would be contrary to the development plan as approved in 1958 but, in the course of the inquiry, that body made it quite clear that although it had made that a ground of refusal it attached very little importance to it. The inspector's words were to the effect that the county council felt that that point should be mentioned.
I would impress upon the hon. Member that where a town map or development plan generally is being reviewed, it inevitably is a fairly lengthy process from the time when the local planning staff starts on the operation to the time when the approval is given by my right hon. Friend. I do not think it could be argued that it would be right to insist upon a sterilisation of all further development pending the approval of a new


town map. We have had other Adjournment debates on cases involving central area redevelopment where inevitably there have been long delays, and difficulties have arisen through the planning authority being unable to give a definite answer. However, in that sort of case where the general proposals of the local planning authority are required for a particular piece of land, as in this case, there is no planning case for saying that individual decisions or permissions must be deferred until the formal town map inquiry.
I ask the hon. Member to bear the timing in mind. The whole development plan for this area is due for review in December of this year, and the county council, as the local planning authority, made it clear in its amplification statement that because of the rapid development of this area it thought that it was right to advance its consideration of the town map for Swanley to precede the development plan which is due now in a matter of months. Therefore the actual timing of this decision is giving planning permission perhaps a year before the matter is due to come up in the development plan review.
In many of our debates my right hon. Friend is attacked for not making sufficient land available and thereby making prices higher than they otherwise might be. And indeed there is a strong case, where land is agreed by all parties to be suitable for residential development, for bringing it on to the market. This land is not only agreed by all parties to be suitable, but it happens to be conveniently situated as regards services. One would have to have a very strong argument indeed to keep that land sterilised, particularly for a relatively short period, on the basis of who should develop it rather than on the basis of whether it should be developed at all.
The second point on which, with due respect to the hon. Member, there is a measure of misunderstanding, is the question of designation and compulsory acquisition. Whether or not a piece of land to be acquired by the local authority is designated in the development plan, ultimately it has to be acquired, in the absence of agreement, by the use of compulsory purchase powers. I suspect that the underlying argument here is that if

we waited and had it designated it would be safe and put in reserve for the local authority to acquire as and when it wanted it.
This is simply not so, because, as the hon. Member knows, once a development plan is published with a designation in it there is a right on the part of the owner, under Part IV of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, to require the acquisition rather than have the land, from his point of view, permanently sterilised. Therefore, as far as the local authority is concerned, compulsory purchase procedure becomes a necessity in this case—if not at the moment then at any rate within a very limited period.
The hon. Member went on to say that there were in this area 184 acres available for residential development but that the local authority itself had only about 23 acres, the balance being controlled, as the hon. Member put it, by this developer. Here again, ultimately for the local authority to carry out its housing programme it has clearly got to acquire more land, and I cannot see the relevance of the fact—whether a coincidence or otherwise—that the ownership is in the hands of one particular developer. I do not think that that inhibits the local authority in any way from using its compulsory purchase powers as and when it wants to acquire more land; nor does it affect the price that the local authority would pay for it, because the price will be based on residential values, as it would be in any case, since the planning permission assumed to be granted is for the purpose for which the acquiring authority is, in fact, acquiring the land. Whether or not the planning permission exists, as I understand it, the compensation, or price, would be precisely the same.
What it really amounts to is that the argument is a balance between bringing on to the market land that is in every sense regarded as suitable for residential development, and keeping it off the market for probably a year in order to enable the local authority to postpone the actual purchase and, of course, thereby postpone finding the necessary purchase price. One clearly sees the advantage to the local authority in that, but I cannot believe that on planning grounds, when a piece of land is agreed as suitable for development and when


the services and so on are available, it is right to say that this is premature.
I know it is argued that in this case the local authority wanted to develop this land—though I see no overriding reason why it should not still do so—and that the chances of the residents on this new estate coming from outside the town will be greater than if the estate was developed by the local authority for its housing list. Of course, there is some strength in this argument, but nevertheless, as I understand this area, there is a good deal of cross-traffic between it and the employment areas of North Kent. There is a good deal of movement out of Swanley to places like Sidcup and Orpington, and of course local authorities have no control over where their tenants work once they become tenants. Nor have they any control over where the purchasers of their houses work.
As the hon. Gentleman said, it was a point in the local authority's case that a proportion at least of these houses would be built for sale rather than for letting. I submit, therefore, that there is very little control, even in the case of building by the local authority, over where people work and where they move to and from during the course of the day. I admit that, on balance, development by the private enterprise developer is more likely to lead to people coming from a distance; but I cannot accept that the difference is as great as is made out.
The other point to which I should like to draw attention is that this development, which includes something in the neighbourhood of 288 dwellings, is a balanced development also containing offices, placed close to the railway station, of something like 60,000 square feet, providing employment for between 400 and 500 office workers. So on that basis it could give enough employment, at least, for a number of people equivalent to the number who will occupy those particular houses. Although it may not actually help in the commuting problem, there is certainly no reason why the net effect should be to worsen it, since there will be a balanced community. There seems to be no reason why those local people who are in the market for buying local authority houses should not be in the market for these houses, bearing in mind

that the local authority is still able to lend money for the purchase of houses whether or not it is itself the vendor.
A great deal has been made—I have seen some of the Press cuttings—of the point that it is unfair to jump the gun, so to speak, and that here is something which should have been left to the review of the town map. Indeed, this was the view of the inspector. But I think it relevant also that where the local authority wished to obtain planning permission in respect of another site of which it owned the freehold, it applied for planning permission while the town map review was in preparation, before this particular appeal came forward. That was on what, I believe, is known as the White Oak site. The local authority did not see anything wrong—and I agree—in applying for planning permission; and I think that it would have been a little hurt if it had been told that it had to wait until the town map review procedure was completed. If that principle be right in one case, there is no very strong ground for complaining about its application in another. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there was another application in the area, known as Birchwood Grove, where my right hon. Friend turned down the appeal, with specific reference to the greater suitability for housing of the site we are now considering.
As regards the overall picture, as the hon. Gentleman said, there are still considerable areas in this part of the county for residential development. Whether or not the local authority decides to acquire this particular site, or any other land, whether or not owned by the same developer, the procedure it will have to go through in order to acquire the land will be the same.
I conclude by stressing my firm belief that planning can work only on the basis of land use. Everyone agrees that this is a suitable use for this particular land, the services are available, and I really cannot accept that it would have been right to have reached a decision other than the one which my right hon. Friend reached. If the question of over-riding the inspector worries the hon. Gentleman, I am sure he will appreciate that the whole system is based on the supposition that the inspector is a representative of


my right hon. Friend collecting information and is not himself the judge. If the hon. Gentleman reads carefully all the findings of fact which the inspector recorded, he will agree that the only one which leads to the conclusion which the inspector reached is the one in which he, in effect, said that this was premature. That is a matter of policy and my right

hon. Friend was in no way going against the other findings of fact, the general tenor of the inspector's report, or the universal agreement about the suitability of the land for this purpose.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Two o'clock.